she was so enraged that she took poison forthwith,
and, in her agony, actually spit up her liver, which had been torn to
pieces by the force of the poison! The King could not stand the
horrible sight, and ran off and hid himself in the race-stand, near
which you fell and broke your thigh-bone in April last; there he
remained shut up till she died. He had had warning, sir, for a few
months after his accession to the throne; I attended him and his
minister, Aga Meer, on a visit to the garden, called padshah baag, on
the opposite side of the river: he had a gun with him, and, seeing a
monkey on a tree, he ordered the prime minister to try his hand at
it. I told Aga Meer that evil would certainly befall him or his house
if he shot the animal, and begged his Majesty not to assist upon the
minister's doing it. Both laughed at what they thought my folly; the
minister shot the monkey; and in a few days he was out of office and
in a prison. One way or other, sir, a man who wilfully destroys a
monkey is sure to be punished."

[* That Asgur Allee Khan, the eldest son of the King, Mahommed Allee
Shah, did shoot the monkey, got a fever a few days after, and died of
it, are facts well known at Lucknow. That he often mentioned the
monkey during his delirium, is generally believed; and that his death
was the consequence of his shooting that animal is the opinion of all
the Hindoo, and a great part of the Musulman, population. His death,
while his father lived, deprived his son, Moomtaz-od Dowla, of the
throne.]

[** The Kooduseea Begum had been introduced into the palace as
waiting-woman to Mulika Zumanee, whom she soon superseded in the
King's affections, which she retained till her death. She was married
to the King on the 17th December, 1831, and died on the 21st of
August 1834.]

At Khyrabad there is a handsome set of buildings, consisting of a
mausoleum over his father, a mosque, an _imambara_, and a _kudum
rusool_, or shrine with the print of the prophet's foot, erected by
Mucka Durzee, a tailor in the service of the King, who made a large
fortune out of his master's favours, and who still lives, and
provides for their repair and suitable endowment. These buildings
are, like all others of the same kind, infested by a host of
professional religious mendicants of both sexes and all ages, who
make the air resound with their clamours for alms. Not only are such
buildings so infested, but all the towns around them. I could not
h