to
maintain the same up to the present day in adversity. In prison and
up to the hour of her death, which took place some time after that of
Moonna Jan himself, the old Begum declared that she had seen the boy
born, and had never lost sight of him; and that the story of his not
being the son of Nuseer-od Deen, was got up to prevent her ever
becoming reconciled to the King through the means of his son; and her
extraordinary affection for him never diminished while he lived. When
she retired from the palace of Nuseer-od Deen to her new residence of
Almas Bagh, she kept fast hold of the boy, and would never let him
out of her sight till they entered the prison at Chunar, when they
were obliged to occupy separate apartments. Up to his death she
watched over him with the tenderest care; and always declared to the
European officers placed over her, that the boy's father and mother
always resided with her up to the time of his birth. The boy was
remarkably like Nuseer-od Deen in form and features, as well as in
temper and disposition.

Afzul-mahal was a person of great good sense and prudence, and in all
things trusted by the old Begum, who before her death executed a
formal will, leaving to her the charge of Moonna Jan's three
children, and all the establishments; and since the death of the old
lady she has executed the trust conscientiously, and with great
economy; and with much difficulty managed to maintain all in
respectability upon the small stipend of three hundred rupees a-
month, allowed for their support by the King of Oude. In this, she
has been very much impeded and annoyed by the two slave-girls, the
mothers of Moonna Jan's children, who have been always striving to
get this stipend into their own hands, that they may share it with
their paramours. At the death of the old lady most of her female
companions and attendants refused to return to Lucknow, and remained
at Chunar with Afzul-mahal and the children; and all have to be
subsisted out of this small stipend. The slave-girls urge, that they
might have had separate pensions, had they obeyed the orders to
return to Lucknow on the death of the Begum, and that they ought not
now to share in the stipend of the children. Five or six of the
females were ladies of rank, and one of them, who died lately, was a
widow of Saadut Allee Khan.

This pension may be discontinued when the boys become of age, or
appropriated by them and their mothers for their own exclusive u