The town of Khyrabad has still a good many inhabitants; but the number is fast decreasing. It was the residence of the families of a good many public officers in our service and that of Oude; and the local authorities of the district used to reside here. They do so no longer; and the families of public officers have almost all gone to reside at other places. Life and property have become exceedingly insecure, and attacks by gang-robbers so frequent that no man thinks his house and family safe for a single night. Government officers are entirely occupied in the collection of revenue, and they disregard altogether the sufferings and risks to which the people of towns are exposed. The ground around the place is low, and the climate is inferior to that of Seetapoor. Salt and saltpetre are 'made from the soil immediately round the town.
I have mentioned that Moomtaz-od Dowla might now have been King of Oude had his father not died before his father. The Mohammedan law excludes for ever the children of any person who dies before the person to whom he or she is the next heir from all right in the inheritance. Under the operation of this law, the sons of the eldest son of the reigning King are excluded from the succession if he dies before his father, and the crown devolves on the second son, or on the brother of the King, if he leaves no other son. The sons of all the sons who die, while their father lives, are mahjoob-ol-irs, that is, excluded from inheritance. In the same manner, if the next brother of the King dies before him, his sons are excluded from the succession, which devolves on the third brother, and so on through all the brothers. For instance, on the death, without any recognised issue, of Nuseer-od Been Hyder, son of Ghazee-od Deen, he was succeeded on the throne by Mahommed Allee Shah, the third brother of Ghazee-od Deen, though four sons of the second brother, Shums-od Dowla, still lived. On the death of Mahommed Allee Shah, he was succeeded by his second son, Amjud Allee Shah, though Moomtaz-od Dowla, the son of his eldest son, Asgur Allee Khan, still lived. Shums-od Dowla died before his elder brother, Ghazee-od Deen; and Asgur Allee Khan before his father, Mahommed Allee Shah: and the sons of both became, in consequence, mahjoob-ol-irs, excluded from succession. The same rule guides the succession among the Delhi sovereigns. This exclusion extends to all kinds of property, as well as to sovereignty.
Moomtaz-od Dowla is married to Zeenut-on Nissa, the daughter of Mulika Zumanee, one of the consorts of Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, late King of Oude; and he has, I fear, more cause to regret his union with her than his exclusion from the throne. Zeenut-on Nissa enjoys a pension of ten thousand rupees a-month, in her own right, under the guarantee of the British Government. I may here, as an episode not devoid of interest, give a brief account of her mother, who, for some years, during the reign of Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, presided over the palace at Lucknow. Before I do so I may mention that the King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, had been married to a grand-daughter of the Emperor of Delhi, a very beautiful young woman, of exemplary character, who still survives, and retains the respect of the royal family and people of Lucknow. Finding the Court too profligate for her, she retired into private life soon after the marriage, and has remained there ever since upon a small stipend from the King.
Mulika Zumanee, queen of the age, was a daughter of a Hindoo of the Koormee caste, who borrowed from his neighbour, Futteh Morad, the sum of sixty rupees, to purchase cloth. He soon after died, leaving a widow, and a daughter named Dolaree, then five years of age. They were both seized and confined for the debt by Futteh Morad; but, on the mother's consenting to leave her daughter in bondage for the debt, she was released. Futteh Morad's sister, Kuramut-on Nissa, adopted Dolaree, who was a prepossessing child, and brought her up as her daughter; but finding, as she grew up, that she was too intimate with Roostum, the son by a former husband of her brother's second wife, she insisted on their being married, and they were so. Futteh Morad soon after died, and his first wife turned the second, with her first son, Roostum, and his wife, Dolaree, and the two sons which she had borne to Futteh Morad—Futteh Allee Khan and Warus Allee Khân—out of her house. They went to Futteh Morad's aunt, Bebee Mulatee, a learned woman, who resided as governess in the house of Nawab Mohubbet Khan, at Roostumnugger, near Lucknow, and taught his daughters to read the Koran. Finding Dolaree to be not the most faithful of wives to Roostum, she would not admit them into the Nawab's house, but she assisted them with food and raiment; and Roostum entered the service—as a groom—of a trooper in the King's cavalry, called Abas Kolee Beg. Dolaree had given birth to a boy, who was named Mahommed Allee; and she now gave birth to a daughter; but she had cohabited with a blacksmith and an elephant-driver in the neighbourhood, and it became a much "vexed question" whether the son and daughter resembled most Roostum, the blacksmith, or the elephant-driver; all, however, were agreed upon the point of Dolaree's backslidings. Mahommed Allee, alias Kywan Ja, was three years of age, and the daughter, Zeenut-on Nissa, one year and half, when some belted attendants from the palace came to Roostumnugger in search of a wet-nurse for the young prince, Moona Jan, who had been born the night before; and Bebee Mulatee, whose reputation for learning had readied the royal family, sent off Dolaree as one of the candidates for employment. Her appearance pleased the queen, the Padshah Begum, the quality of her milk was pronounced by the royal physicians to be first rate, and she was chosen, as wet-nurse for the new-born prince.
Moona Jan's father (then heir-apparent to the throne of Oude) no sooner saw Dolaree than, to the astonishment of the Queen and her Court, he fell desperately in love with her, though she seemed very plain and very vulgar to all other eyes; and he could neither repose himself, nor permit anybody else in the palace to repose, till he obtained the King's and Queen's consent to his making her his wife, which he did in 1826. She soon acquired an entire ascendancy over his weak mind, and, anxious to surround herself in her exalted station by people on whom she could entirely rely, she invited the learned Bebee Mulatee and her daughter, Jumeel-on Nissa, and her son, Kasim Beg, to the palace, and placed them in high and confidential posts. She invited at the same time Futteh Allee and Warus Allee, the sons of Futteh Morad by his second wife; and persuaded the King that they were all people of high lineage, who had been reduced, by unmerited misfortunes, to accept employments so humble. All were raised to the rank of Nawabs, and placed in situations of high trust and emoluments. Kuramut-on Nissa, too, the sister of Futteh Morad, was invited; but when Dolaree's husband—the humble Roostum—ventured to approach the Court, he was seized and imprisoned in a fort in the Bangur district till the death of Nuseer-od Deen, when he was released. He came to Lucknow, but died soon after.
Soon after the death of Ghazee-od Deen had placed the heir-apparent, her husband, on the throne, 20th of October, 1827, she fortified herself still further by high alliances: and her son, Mahommed Allee, was affianced to the daughter of Rokun-od Dowla, brother of the late King; and her daughter, Zeenut-on Nissa, to Moomtaz-od Dowla, the prince of whom I am writing. These two marriages were celebrated at a cost of about thirty lacs of rupees; Dolaree was declared the first consort of the King, under the title of "Mulika Zamanee," queen of the age, and received an estate in land yielding six lacs of rupees a-year for pin-money. Not satisfied with this, she prevailed upon the King to declare her son, Mahommed Allee, alias Kywan Ja, to be his own and eldest son, and heir-apparent to the throne; and to demand his recognition as such from the British Government, through its representative, the Resident. His Majesty, with great solemnity, assured the Resident, on many occasions during November and December, 1827, that Kywan Ja was his eldest son; and told him that had he not been so, his uncle would never have consented to bestow his daughter upon him in marriage, nor should he himself have consented to expend twenty lacs of rupees in the ceremonies. The Resident told him that the universal impression at Lucknow was, that the boy was three years of age when his mother was first introduced to his Majesty. But this had no effect; and, to remove all further doubts and discussions on the subject, he wrote a letter himself to the Governor-General, earnestly protesting that Kywan Ja was his eldest son and heir-apparent to the throne; and as such he was sent from Lucknow to Cawnpoor to meet and escort over Lord Combermere in December, 1827.
On the birth of Moonna Jan, the then King, Ghazee-od Deen Hyder, declared to the Resident that the boy was not his grandson, and that his son, Nuseer-od Deen, pretended that he was his son merely to please his imperious mother, the Padshah Begum, and to annoy his father, with whom they were both on bad terms. Ghazee-od Deen had, however, before his death declared that he believed Moonna Jan to be his grandson.* In February, 1832, the King, Nuseer-od Deen Hyder, first through the minister, and then in person, assured the Resident that neither of the boys was his son, and requested that he would report the same to his Government, and assure the Governor-General "that both reports, as to these boys being sons of his, were false, and arose from the same cause, bribery and ambition, that Mulika Zumanee had paid many lacs of rupees to influential people about him to persuade him to call her son his, and declare him heir-apparent to the throne; and that Fazl Allee and Sookcheyn had done the same to induce others to persuade him to acknowledge Moonna Jan to be his son. But, said his Majesty, I know positively that he is not my son, and my father knew the same."
[* I believe that Ghazee-od Deen's first repudiation of Moonna Jan arose entirely from a desire to revenge himself upon his termagant wife, whose furious temper left him no peace. She was, from his birth, very fond of the boy; and to question his legitimacy was to wound her in her tenderest point. This was the "raw" which her husband established, and which his son and successor afterwards worked upon.]
The wary minister then, to clench the matter, remarked that his Majesty had mentioned to him that he had ceased to cohabit with Moonna Jan's mother for twenty-four months before the boy was born; and the King assured the Resident that this was quite true. Hakeem Mehndee was as anxious as Aga Meer had been to keep the King estranged from his imperious mother, and the only sure way was to make him persist in repudiating the boy or postponing his claim to the succession.
Mulika Zumanee's influence over the king had, however, been eclipsed, first, by Miss Walters, Mokuddera Ouleea, whose history has already been given; secondly, by the beautiful Taj Mahal; and, thirdly, by the Kuduseea Begum. She entered the palace as a waiting-woman to Mulika Zumanee, and, on the 17th of December, 1831, the King married her; and from that day till her death, on the 21st of August, 1834, she reigned supreme in the palace and in the King's affections.