Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c6.s2.4

v1.c6.s2.4

His sole diversion outside the harem was witnessing animal fights on the sandy bank of the Jamunā below the window of morning salute in the Delhi palace, occasionally varied by the cares of a bird-fancier. We can understand his wish to enjoy from a safe distance the excitement of the heroic and dangerous game of elephant-combats, which his forefathers had reserved as an imperial prerogative. But when we read how Muhammad Shah spent his morning hours not in doing public justice or holding State councils, but in viewing a wrestling match between two bears, or a fight by "three pairs of bears, a goat, a ram, and a wild boar, which were wrapped in tiger skins and trained to attack an elephant" (as he is recorded to have done on 25th April 1743), we wonder whether such spectacles would be considered a worthy diversion by any one outside a nursery unless he were a vulgar country clown, and whether the lord of a hundred and fifty million souls at the ripe age of 41 had no more serious use for his time and no higher tastes. [*Akhbārāt.*]