streets. When this red-handed marauder took his
departure he carried away with him booty to the value of eighty millions
sterling in the value of that time. Among the plunder was the famous
Peacock Throne, alone reputed to be worth six million pounds. This
remarkable piece of kingly furniture is said to be in the possession of
the Shah of Persia at the present time. It is very probable, however,
that only some unique portion of the throne is preserved, as it could
hardly have been carried back to Persia by Nadir intact. This throne is
thus described by a writer: "The throne was six feet long and four broad,
composed of solid gold inlaid with precious stones. It was surmounted by
a canopy of gold, supported on twelve pillars of the same material.
Around the canopy hung a fringe of pearls; on each side of the throne
stood two chattahs, or umbrellas, symbols of royalty, formed of crimson
velvet richly embroidered with gold thread and pearls, and with handles
of solid gold, eight feet long, studded with diamonds. The back of the
throne was a representation of the expanded tail of a peacock, the
natural colors of which were imitated by sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and
other gems." This Peacock Throne was the envy and admiration of every
contemporary monarch who heard of it, and was undoubtedly one of the
chief elements in exciting the cupidity of the outer world that finally
ended in the dissolution of the Mogul Empire.

Less than ten years after the departure of Nadir Shah, Ahmud Khan
advanced with an army from Cabool, and took pretty much everything of
value that the Khorassani freebooter had overlooked, besides committing
more atrocities upon the population. At the end of another decade an army
of Mahrattas took possession, and completed the spoilation by ripping the
silver filigree-work off the ceiling of the Throne-room. Not long after
this, yet another adventurer took a hand in the work of destruction,
tortured the members of the imperial family, and put out the eyes of the
helpless old emperor, Shah Alum. Here Lord Lake's cavalcade arrived, too,
in 1803, and found the blinded chief of the royal house of Timour and his
magnificent successors, who built Delhi and Agra, seated beneath the
tattered remnants of a little canopy, a mockery of royalty, with every
external appearance of misery and helplessness And lastly, here, in May,
1857, the last representative of the great Moguls, a not unwilling tool
in the hands of the