uishable from that of the oppressed.[27]

Within this apartment and over the side arches at one end is
inscribed in black letters the celebrated couplet, 'If there be a
paradise on the face of the earth, it is this--it is this--it is
this.[28] Anything more unlike paradise than this place now is can
hardly be conceived. Here are crowded together twelve hundred _kings_
and _queens_ (for all the descendants of the Emperors assume the
title of Salatin, the plural of Sultan) literally eating each other
up.[29]

Government, from motives of benevolence, has here attempted to
apportion out the pension they assign to the Emperor, to the
different members of his great family circle who are to be subsisted
upon it, instead of leaving it to his own discretion. This has
perhaps tended to prevent the family from throwing off its useless
members to mix with the common herd, and to make the population press
against the means of subsistence within these walls. Kings and queens
of the house of Timur are to be found lying about in scores, like
broods of vermin, without food to eat or clothes to cover their
nakedness. It has been proposed by some to establish colleges for
them in the palace to fit them by education for high offices under
our Government. Were this done, this pensioned family, which never
can possibly feel well affected towards our Government or any
Government but their own, would alone send out men enough to fill all
the civil offices open to the natives of the country, to the
exclusion of the members of the humbler but better affected families
of Muhammadans and Hindoos. If they obtained the offices they would
be educated for, the evil to Government and to society would be very
great; and if they did not get them, the evil would be great to
themselves, since they would be encouraged to entertain hopes that
could not be realized. Better let them shift for themselves and
quietly sink among the crowd. They would only become rallying points
for the dissatisfaction and multiplied sources of disaffection;
everywhere doing mischief, and nowhere doing good. Let loose upon
society, they everywhere disgust people by their insolence and
knavery, against which we are every day required to protect the
people by our interference; the prestige of their name will by
degrees diminish, and they will sink by and by into utter
insignificance. During his stay at Jubbulpore, Kambaksh, the nephew
of the Emperor, whom I have already mentioned