Mohabit accused her of having planned her husband's death, and she was conducted by him before the Emperor to make her defence. "You, who are Emperor of the Moguls," said Mohabit, exhorting the infatuated monarch to throw off her dangerous influence, "ought to follow the example of God, who is no respecter of persons." But the beautiful and specious Noormahal prevailed; and when the Emperor, affected by the sight of her tears, appealed to Mohabit to spare her, the chivalrous soldier replied, That the Emperor of the Moguls should never ask a favour of him in vain, and signed to the guards to relinquish their prisoner. Noormahal survived her husband eighteen years; but from the hour of his death she retired altogether from affairs of state, and closed her life amongst the gardens and palaces of the royal residence of Lahore.

Arjamund Banu.-Although not distinguished by the craft and ability of her predecessor, Arjamund Banu, the heroine of the Taj Mahal, has been handed down to posterity by the story of her beauty and unbounded influence over the Emperor Shah Jehan.

It was the custom in those days, as it is in our own, for ladies to hold fancy fairs, and to sell their merchandise to the highest bidders. Shah Jehan, then a prince residing at his father's court at Agra, attended a bazaar where the Emperor had commanded that the nobles should give whatever price was asked for their wares by the fair stall-keepers. Prince Jehan, pausing before the booth of Arjamund Banu, the daughter of the Vizier Asiph Jah, and wife of Jemal Kahn, was so struck by her beauty and grace that when she asked him £12,500 for a

piece of sugar candy, cut in the shape of a diamond, the infatuated young man smilingly paid the fancy price demanded for her bon-bon by this enterprising saleswoman. He invited her to his palace; and when, after three days' séjour with him, she returned to her husband, she felt much aggrieved that her lawful lord received her less. warmly than she considered becoming. She immediately complained of her tyrant's fit of the sulks to Shah Jehan, who quickly found a remedy against the recurrence of such attacks of temper. He ordered him to the elephant garden, that he might there be destroyed. Jemal Kahn, upon this unpleasant news, hastened to the prince and humbly begged that he might be allowed to explain. Permission was graciously accorded, when he judiciously declared that his reserve had not proceeded from coldness, but from a sense of his unworthiness to take to his bosom the being who had been honoured by the attention of the son of the great Mogul. A royal suit and the command of 5,000 horse was immediately bestowed upon the accommodating husband, and the lady was transported forthwith to the seraglio of the prince. She possessed, it is said by historians, the wit and beauty of her aunt, Noormahal, and the wisdom and integrity of her grandfather Aiass. She is spoken of as that virtuous woman who is proverbially a crown to her husband, whose only wife she remained during twenty years, and when she died the Taj Mahal at Agra, that exquisite dream in marble, bore witness to the devotion and attachment which even her memory was still able to inspire.

The daughters of Shah Jehan.-The daughters of Shah

Jehan were important actors in the scenes of his eventful reign. They were all three women of beauty, talents and accomplishments. Jehanara, the eldest, was remarkable alike for wit and beauty. Her devotion to her father knew no bounds; and he had so high an opinion of her judgment, that his will became in many cases subservient to that of his lovely tyrant. Nevertheless, a terrible story of the summary vengeance he wreaked upon a favoured lover shows that affection did not altogether blind him to the possible effects of his daughter's somewhat too elastic morality. He paid her an unexpected visit; and, in the hurry and confusion occasioned by the inopportune attention, Jehanara could think of no better place wherein to conceal the contraband lover than in one of the huge cauldrons made to hold water for the bath. Then, after affectionately enquiring after her health, he insisted on the restoring and curative effects of hot water, and desired that fires should at once be made under the cauldrons in order that she might without delay experience the agreeable results he described. Jehanara dared not resist; and, feigning unconsciousness of her agony, her father remained conversing cheerfully and affably with his miserable daughter until a servant brought him word that the unhappy lover was boiled to death, when, without uttering a word of reproach, he amiably took his departure. His second daughter, Ranchenara Begum, was acute, artful, intriguing and ambitious, and as devoted to Aurungzebe as Jehanara was to Prince Dara, her father's eldest son, and heir-presumptive. Later, when Dara had been defeated by Aurungzebe, and his wife and son placed with Jeha

nara under close restraint, it was the younger sister Ranchanara Begum, who scented out all the plots and intrigues at Court and confided them to Aurungzebe. The gentleness of Suria Banu, the third daughter, kept her aloof from political intrigue and family dissension. Jehanara tenderly nursed her father through his last illness, and survived him many years. Her brother Aurungzebe was eventually reconciled to her; and amidst the ruin and desolation of the pearl mosque at Delhi, may still be deciphered the last injunction of "the perishable pilgrim," Jehanara Begum : "Let not any person desecrate my tomb with any other thing than earth or flowers, for these are fitted for the resting place of a Holy Spirit.'

*Sullivan.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE REMARKABLE WOMEN OF INDIA-continued.

Ahalya Bhye the Good, Queen of Indore-Tulsee Bhye the Cruel, Regent of Indore.

Ahalya Bhye, the Queen of Indore, or, the dominions of Holkar.-Ahalya Bhye was the widow of the only son of Mulhur Rao Holkar, the founder of the Holkar dynasty, and on the death of her only son, who died in early childhood, soon after the death of his grandfather, assumed, according to the custom of the Mahrattas, the administration of the country.

The long, peaceful, and successful reign of this illustrious lady was at its commencement vehemently opposed by the intrigues and machinations of Bagonath Rao, the uncle of the then Peishwa, who endeavoured to force upon the Queen the adoption of a child whose future movements might be subject to his guidance or that of his agents.

This scheme was entirely frustrated by the wise conduct of the princess aided by the determination of the chiefs of the Mahratta States, to uphold "the legitimate rights of the widow of Mulhar Rao's son."*

*Malleson's "Native States of India."