lties arising in
the Government of a peculiarly heterogeneous empire, he stands
absently supreme among Oriental sovereigns, and may even challenge
comparison with the greatest of European rulers.'

Unhappily, there is reason to believe that the marble slab no longer
covers the bones of Akbar. Manucci states positively that 'During the
time that Aurangzeb was actively at war with Shiva Ji [_scil._ the
Marathas], the villagers of whom I spoke before broke into the
mausoleum in the year 1691 [in words], and after stealing all the
stones and all the gold work to be found, extracted the king's bones
and had the temerity to throw them on a fire and burn them' (_Storia
do Mogor_, i. 142). The statement is repeated with some additional
particulars in a later passage, which concludes with the words:
'Dragging out the bones of Akbar, they threw them angrily into the
fire and burnt them' (ibid. ii. 320). Irvine notes that the
plundering of the tomb by the Jats is mentioned in detail by only one
other writer, Ishar Das Nagar, author of the _Fatuhat-I-Alamgiri_, a
manuscript in the British Museum. Manucci seems to be the sole
authority for the alleged burning of Akbar's bones. I should be glad
to disbelieve him, but cannot find any reason for doing so.

CHAPTER 52

Nur Jahan, the Aunt of the Empress Nur Mahal, over whose Remains the
Taj is built.[1]

I crossed over the river Jumna one morning to look at the tomb of
Itimad-ud-daula, the most remarkable mausoleum in the neighbourhood
after those of Akbar and the Taj. On my way back, I asked one of the
boatmen who was rowing me who had built what appeared to me a new
dome within the fort. 'One of the Emperors, of course,' said he.
'What makes you think so?'

'Because such things are made only by Emperors,' replied the man
quietly, without relaxing his pull at the oar.

'True, very true,' said an old Musalman trooper, with large white
whiskers and moustachios, who had dismounted to follow me across the
river, with a melancholy shake of the head, 'very true; who but
Emperors could do such things as these?'

Encouraged by the trooper, the boatman continued:--'The Jats and the
Marathas did nothing but pull down and destroy while they held their
_accursed dominion_ here; and the European gentlemen who now govern
seem to have no pleasure in building anything but _factories, courts
of justice, and jails_.'

Feeling as an Englishman, as we all must sometimes do, be where we