ORIGINAL PREFACE.
indulged himself with visions of Jahángír's broad highway from one distant capital to the other, shaded throughout the whole length by stately avenues of trees, and accommodated at short distance with saráís and tanks; but the scale of that Emperor's munificence will probably be reduced in his eyes, when he sees it written, that the same work had already been in great measure accomplished by Sher Sháh, and that the same merit is also ascribed to a still earlier predecessor; nor will it be an unreasonable reflection, when he finds, except a ruined milestone here and there, no vestige extant of this magnificent highway, and this “delectable alley of trees,” that, after all, that can have been no very stupendous work, which the resources of three successive Emperors have failed to render a more enduring monument.[1] When he reads of the canals of Firoz Sháh and ’Ali Mardán Khán intersecting the country, he will find on further examination, that even if the former was ever open, it was used only for the palace and hunting park of that monarch; but when he ascertains that no mention is made of it by any of the historians of Timúr, who are very minute in their topographical details, and that Bábar exclaims in his Memoirs, that in none of the Hindústání Provinces are there any canals (and both these conquerors must have passed over these canals, had they been flowing in their time), he may, perhaps, be disposed to doubt if anything was proceeded with beyond the mere excavation. With respect to ’Ali Mardán Khán, his merits will be less extolled, when it is learnt that his canals were made, not with any view to benefit the public, but for an ostentatious display of his profusion, in order that the hoards of his ill-gotten wealth might not be appropriated by the monarch to whom he betrayed his trust. When he reads that in some of the reigns of these kings, security of person and property was so great, that any traveller might go where he listed, and that a bag of gold might be exposed on the highways, and no one dare touch it,[2] he will learn to exercise a wise scepticism, on ascertaining
- ↑ Coryat speaks of the avenue, “the most incomparable I ever beheld.”—Kerr, ix. 421.
- ↑ It is worth while to read the comment of the wayfaring European on this pet phrase. Bernier, describing his situation when he arrived at the Court of Shájahán, speaks of “le peu d’argent qui me restoit de diverses rencontres de voleurs.”— Hist. des Estats du Grand Mogol, p. 5
