17. The State of Sātārā, like that of Nāgpur, lapsed owing to failure of heirs, and was annexed in 1854. It is now a district in the Bombay Presidency.
18. During the early years of the twentieth century a spirit of Marāthā nationalism has been sedulously cultivated, with inconvenient results.
19. This paragraph, and that next following, are, in the original edition, printed as part of Chapter 48, 'The Great Diamond of Kohinūr', with which they have nothing to do. They seem to belong properly to Chapter 47, and are therefore inserted here. The observations in both paragraphs are merely repetitions of remarks already recorded.
20. It need hardly be said that these fire-eaters no longer exist.
[CHAPTER 48]
The Great Diamond of Kohinūr.
The foregoing historical episode occupies too large a space in what might otherwise be termed a personal narrative; but still I am tempted to append to it a sketch of the fortunes of that famous diamond, called with Oriental extravagance the Mountain of Light, which, by exciting the cupidity of Shāh Jahān, played so important a part in the drama.
After slumbering for the greater part of a century in the imperial treasury, it was afterwards taken by Nādir Shāh, the king of Persia, who invaded India under the reign of Muhammad Shāh, in the year 1738.[1] Nadir Shāh, in one of his mad fits, had put out the eyes of his son, Razā Kulī Mirzā, and, when he was assassinated, the conspirators gave the throne and the diamond to this son's son, Shāhrukh Mirza, who fixed his residence at Meshed.[2] Ahmad Shāh, the Abdālī, commanded the Afghān cavalry in the service of Nādir Shāh, and had the charge of the military chest at the time he was put to death. With this chest, he and his cavalry left the camp during the disorders that followed the murder of the king, and returned with all haste to Kandahār, where they met Tarīkī Khān, on his way to Nādir Shāh's camp with the tribute of the five provinces which he had retained of his Indian conquests, Kandahār, Kābul, Tatta, Bakkar, Multān, and Peshāwar. They gave him the first news of the death of the king, seized upon his treasure, and, with the aid of this and the military chest, Ahmad Shāh took possession of these five provinces, and formed them into the little independent kingdom of Afghānistan, over which he long reigned, and from which he occasionally invaded India and Khurāsān.[3]
Shāhrukh Mirzā had his eyes put out some time after by a faction. Ahmad Shāh marched to his relief, put the rebels to death, and united his eldest son, Taimūr Shāh, in marriage to the daughter of the unfortunate prince, from whom he took the diamond, since it could be of no use to a man who could no longer see its beauties. He established Taimūr as his viceroy at Herāt, and his youngest son at Kandahār; and fixed his own residence at Kābul, where he died.[4] He was succeeded by Taimūr Shāh, who was succeeded by his eldest son, Zamān Shāh, who, after a reign of a few years, was driven from his throne by his younger brother, Mahmūd. He sought an asylum with his friend Ashīk, who commanded a distant fortress, and who betrayed him to the usurper, and put him into confinement. He concealed the great diamond in a crevice in the wall of the room in which he was confined; and the rest of his jewels in a hole made in the ground with his dagger. As soon as Mahmūd received intimation of the arrest from Ashīk, he sent for his brother, had his eyes put out, and demanded the jewels, but Zamān Shāh pretended that he had thrown them into the river as he passed over. Two years after this, the third brother, the Sultān Shujā, deposed Mahmūd, ascended the throne by the consent of his elder brother, and, as a fair specimen of his notions of retributive justice, he blew away from the mouths of cannon, not only Ashīk himself, but his wife and all his innocent and unoffending children.
He intended to put out the eyes of his deposed brother, Mahmūd, but was dissuaded from it by his mother and Zamān Shāh, who now pointed out to him the place where he had concealed the great diamond. Mahmūd made his escape from prison, raised a party, drove out his brothers, and once more ascended the throne. The two brothers sought an asylum in the Honourable Company's territories; and have from that time resided at an out frontier station of Lūdiāna, upon the banks of the Hyphasis,[5] upon a liberal pension assigned for their maintenance by our Government. On their way through the territories of the Sikh chief, Ranjit Singh, Shujā was discovered to have this great diamond, the Mountain of Light, about his person; and he was, by a little torture skilfully applied to the mind and body, made to surrender it to his generous host.[6] Mahmūd was succeeded in the government of the fortress and province of Herāt by his son Kāmrān; but the throne of Kābul was seized by the mayor of the palace, who bequeathed it to his son Dost Muhammad, a man, in all the qualities requisite in a sovereign, immeasurably superior to any member of the house of Ahmad Shāh Abdālī. Ranjit Singh had wrested from him the province of Peshāwar in times of difficulty, and, as we would not assist him in recovering it from our old ally, he thought himself justified in seeking the aid of those who would, the Russians and Persians, who were eager to avail themselves of so fair an occasion to establish a footing in India. Such a footing would have been manifestly incompatible with the peace and security of our dominions in India, and we were obliged, in self-defence, to give to Shujā the aid which he had so often before in vain solicited, to enable him to recover the throne of his very limited number of legal ancestors.[7]