for the loss of
his pension in the proud recollection of having saved the honour of
the _house of Tamerlane_, when news was brought to them that the
daughter had run off from camp with his (Colonel Gardiner's) son
James, who had accompanied him to Lucknow. The prince and the colonel
mounted their horses, and rode after him; but they were so much
heavier and older than the young ones, that they soon gave up the
chase in despair. Sulaiman Shikoh insisted upon the colonel
immediately fighting him, after the fashion of the English, with
swords or pistols, but was soon persuaded that the honour of the
house of Timur would be much better preserved by allowing the
offending parties to marry ![18] The King of Oudh was delighted to
find that the old man had been so punished; and the Queen no less so
to find herself so suddenly and unexpectedly relieved from all dread
of her sister's return. All parties wrote to my friend Kam Baksh, who
was then at Jubbulpore;[19] and he came off with their letters to me
to ask whether I thought the incident might not be turned to account
in getting the pension for his father restored.[20]

Notes:

1. Govardhan is a very sacred place of pilgrimage, full of temples,
situated in the Mathura (Muttra) district, sixteen miles west of
Mathura, Regulation V of 1826 annexed Govardhan to the Agra district.
In 1832 Mathura was made the head-quarters of a new district,
Govardhan and other territory being transferred from Agra.

2. The Puranas, even when narrating history after a fashion, are cast
in the form of prophecies. The Bhagavat Purana is especially devoted
to the legends of Krishna. The Hindi version of the 10th Book
(_skandha_) is known as the 'Prem Sagar', or 'Ocean of Love', and is,
perhaps, the most wearisome book in the world.

3. This flight occurred during the struggles following the battle of
Plassy in 1757, which were terminated by the battle of Buxar in 1764,
and the grant to the East India Company of the civil administration
of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in the following year. Shah Alam bore, in
weakness and misery, the burden of the imperial title from 1759 to
1806. From 1765 to 1771 he was the dependent of the English at
Allahabad. From 1771 to 1803 he was usually under the control of
Maratha chiefs, and from the time of Lord Lake's entry into Delhi, in
1803 he became simply a prisoner of the British Government. His
successors occupied the same position. In 1788 he was barbarously