er government with whose history we are
acquainted, or than they now are under any native government in
India.[25]

Those who think they are not so almost always refer to the reign of
Shah Jahan, when men like Tavernier travelled so securely all over
India with their bags of diamonds; but I would ask them whether they
think that the life, property, and character of the innocent could be
anywhere very secure, or their advantages very freely enjoyed, in a
country where a man could do openly with impunity what the traveller
describes to have been done by the Persian physician of the Governor
of Allahabad? This governor, being sickly, had in attendance upon him
_eleven physicians_, one of whom was a European gentleman of
education, Claudius Maille, of Bourges.[26] The chief favourite of
the eleven was, however, a Persian, 'who one day threw his wife from
the top of a battlement to the ground in a fit of jealousy. He
thought the fall would kill her, but she had only a few ribs broken;
whereupon the kindred of the woman came and demanded justice at the
feet of the governor. The governor, sending for the physician,
commanded him to be gone, resolving to retain him no longer in his
service. The physician obeyed; and putting his poor maimed wife in a
palankeen, he set forward upon the road with all his family. But he
had not gone above three or four days' journey from the city, when
the governor, finding himself worse than he was wont to be, sent to
recall him; which the physician perceiving, stabbed his wife, his
four children, and thirteen female slaves, and returned again to the
Governor, who said not a word to him, but entertained him again in
his service.' This occurred within Tavernier's own knowledge and
about the time he visited Allahabad; and is related as by no means a
very extraordinary circumstance.[27]

Notes:

1. January, 1836.

2. The tomb of Safdar Jang, or Mansur Ali Khan, described _ante_,
chapter 68 [4]. The bridges over the Jumna are now, of course,
maintained by Government and the railway companies.

3. The main highways approaching Delhi are now excellent metalled
roads.

4. By the term 'the largest military station in the empire', the
author means Meerut. At present the largest military station in
Northern India is, I believe, Rawal Pindi, and the combined
cantonments of Secunderabad and Bolarum in the Nizam's dominions
constitute the largest military station in the empire.

5. Comprising part