Storia do Mogor 59.5

59.5

Shera, when he became lord over the kingdom, changed his name, and to impose fear upon his enemies called himself Sher Shah. When he became undisputed king, he never forgot to treat his subjects with great equity and kindness. For this end, he sent out orders through all the land to build, at a distance of twelve leagues from each other, saraes where travellers could take shelter. To provide attendants at these saraes, he bought a number of married slaves, and appointed them and their wives to look after travellers — to prepare their food, to provide cool water for them to drink, and warm water for washing their bodies, a bedstead to rest upon furnished with mattresses and sheets; and they were to wait on travellers just as if they were their own private servants, and provide food for wayfarers on foot at the cost of the king. Of these saraes I spoke before in the eighteenth chapter (I. 43).