Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 3.5.9

3.5.9

or else they affect a childish politeness in their demeanour, childish because unnatural and constrained. Who, that is conversant with the history of Asia, can deny the faithfulness of this delineation? Have not her Sovereigns been blindly and brutally cruel, — cruel without judgment or mercy? Have they not been addicted to the mean and gross vice of drunkenness, and abandoned to an excessive and shameless luxury; ruining their bodily health, and impairing their understanding, in the society of concubines? Or, instead of attending to the concerns of the kingdom, have not their days been consumed in the pleasures of the chase? A pack of dogs will engage their thoughts and affection, although indifferent to the sufferings of so many poor people who, compelled to follow the unfeeling Monarch in the pursuit of game, are left to die of hunger, heat, cold, and fatigue. In a word, the Kings of Asia are constantly living in the indulgence of monstrous vices, those vices varying, indeed, as I said before, according to their natural propensities, or to the ideas early instilled into their minds. It is indeed a rare exception when the Sovereign is not profoundly ignorant of the domestic and political condition of his empire.