Fools!--but I will
not waste my anger upon them, and proceed to recount some other portions
of my personal history.
It is, I presume, a fact which even THESE scribbling assassins will not
venture to deny, that before the commencement of the campaign against
Scindiah, the English General formed a camp at Kanouge on the Jumna,
where he exercised that brilliant little army which was speedily to
perform such wonders in the Dooab. It will be as well to give a slight
account of the causes of a war which was speedily to rage through some
of the fairest portions of the Indian continent.
Shah Allum, the son of Shah Lollum, the descendant by the female line
of Nadir Shah (that celebrated Toorkomaun adventurer, who had wellnigh
hurled Bajazet and Selim the Second from the throne of Bagdad)--Shah
Allum, I say, although nominally the Emperor of Delhi, was in reality
the slave of the various warlike chieftains who lorded it by turns over
the country and the sovereign, until conquered and slain by some more
successful rebel. Chowder Loll Masolgee, Zubberdust Khan, Dowsunt Row
Scindiah, and the celebrated Bobbachy Jung Bahawder, had held for a
time complete mastery in Delhi. The second of these, a ruthless Afghan
soldier, had abruptly entered the capital; nor was he ejected from it
until he had seized upon the principal jewels, and likewise put out the
eyes of the last of the unfortunate family of Afrasiab.
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