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104 given up, that persistence obtained its deserved success, and the General, becoming the happy possessor of the coveted mare, took her to Lahore where she was received with much rejoicing by the Mahárájá.

Whether the real horse was given up is still doubtful, for there are few created beings that an Afghán cannot or would not deceive. Certainly, at Rúpar in 1831, when the Mahárájá visited the Governor-General, a brown horse was shown as Láili. When Hügel visited Lahore he especially begged to be allowed to see the famous horse, which the Mahárájá told him had cost him sixty lakhs of rupees and twelve thousand men. He describes Láili as magnificently caparisoned, with gold bangles round his legs, a dark grey, with black points, thirteen years old and fully sixteen hands high. This was the horse Ventura assured Hügel that he had obtained with so much difficulty at Pesháwar; but, on the other hand, Sikh records always speak of Láili as having been a mare which the name would seem to confirm. So the sex of the true Láili must remain a historical puzzle. Certain it is, that no horse, since that which caused the fall of Troy, has ever been the source of so much trouble and the death of so many brave men.

The Mahárájá was a very hard drinker, and it was his indulgence in frequent and fiery potations which killed him, as it has killed a large number of Indian princes in whose States there is no public opinion sufficiently strong to restrain them from habitual intemperance.