t agree in that. The Dutch
have a factory in the town, but the English have now none, because it
did not turn to account.' The number must have been great, or so
sober a man as Monsieur Thevenot would not have thought such an
estimate worthy to be quoted without contradiction.[24] They were
all, except those connected with the single Dutch factory, maintained
from the salaries of office; and they gradually disappeared as their
offices became filled with Muhammadans and Hindoos. The duties of the
artillery, its arsenals, and foundries, were the chief foundation
upon which the superstructure of Christianity then stood in India.
These duties were everywhere entrusted exclusively to Europeans, and
all Europeans were Christians, and, under Shah Jahan, permitted
freely to follow their own modes of worship. They were, too. Roman
Catholic, and spent the greater part of their incomes in the
maintenance of priests. But they could never forget that they were
strangers in the land, and held their offices upon a precarious
tenure; and, consequently, they never felt disposed to expend the
little wealth they had in raising durable tombs, churches, and other
public buildings, to tell posterity who or what they were. Present
physical enjoyment, and the prayers of their priests for a good berth
in the next world, were the only objects of their ambition.
Muhammadans and Hindoos soon learned to perform duties which they saw
bring to the Christians so much of honour and emolument; and, as they
did so, they necessarily sapped the walls of the fabric. Christianity
never became independent of office in India, and, I am afraid, never
will; even under our rule, it still mainly rests upon that
foundation.[25]

Notes:

1. The names and titles of the empress 'over whose remains the Taj is
built' were Nawab Aliya Begam, Arjumand Banu, Mumtaz-i-Mahall. The
title Nur Mahall, as applied to her, is without authority: it
properly belongs to her aunt. 'It is usual in this country', Bernier
observes, 'to give similar names to the members of the reigning
family. Thus the wife of _Chah-Jehan_--so renowned for her beauty,
and whose splendid mausoleum is more worthy of a place among the
wonders of the world than the unshapen masses and heaps of stones in
Egypt--was named _Tage Mehalle_ [Mumtaz-i-Mahall], or the Crown of
the Seraglio; and the wife of Jehan-Guyre, who so long wielded the
sceptre, while her husband abandoned himself to drunkenness and
dis