d competitors for dominion whom they did not like to put to
a violent death. They kept a large menagerie, and other things, for
their amusement. Among the best of the princes who ended their days
in this great prison was Sulaiman Shikoh, the eldest son of the
unhappy Dara.[1] A narrative of the contest for empire between the
four sons of Shah Jahan may, perhaps, prove both interesting and
instructive; and, as I shall have occasion, in the course of my
rambles, to refer to the characters who figured in it, I shall
venture to give it a place. . . .[2]

Notes:

1. 'The prisons of Gwalior are situated in a small outwork on the
western side of the fortress, immediately above the Dhondha gateway.
They are called "nau chauki", or "the nine cells", and are both well
lighted and well ventilated. But in spite of their height, from
fifteen to twenty-six feet, they must be insufferably close in the
hot season. These were the State prisons in which Akbar confined his
rebellious cousins, and Aurangzeb the troublesome sons of Dara and
Murad, as well as his own more dangerous son Muhammad. During these
times the fort was strictly guarded, and no one was allowed to enter
without a pass' (_A.S.R._, vol. ii, p. 369), Sulaiman Shikoh, whom
Manucci credits with 'all the gifts of nature', was poisoned at
Gwalior early in the reign of Aurangzeb, by order of that monarch,
paternal uncle of the victim (Irvine, _Storia do Mogor_, i. 380). The
author, following Bernier, always calls Shahjahan's eldest son simply
Dara. His name really was Dara Shikoh (or Shukoh), meaning 'in
splendour like Darius'.

2. The following twelve chapters contain an historical piece, to the
personages and events of which the author will have frequent occasion
to refer; and it is introduced in this place from its connexion with
Gwalior, the State prison in which some of its actors ended their
days. [W. H. S.]

The 'historical piece' which occupies chapters 37 to 46, inclusive of
the author's text is little more than a paraphrase of _The History of
the Late Rebellion in the States of the Great Mogol_ by Bernier, as
the disquisition is called in Brock's translation. Mr. A. Constable's
revised and annotated translation of Bernier's work (Constable and
Co., 1891; reprinted with corrections. Oxford University Press, 1914)
renders superfluous the reprinting of Sleeman's paraphrase, which
would require much correction and comment before it could be
presented to readers o