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Robert Kerr (writer)

Notwithstanding the multitude of his women, the Great Mogul has only six children, five sons and a daughter.  All his sons are styled sultans, or princes.  The eldest is Sultan Cursero, the second, Sultan Parrveis, the third, Sultan Caroon, the fourth, Sultan Shahar, and the youngest, Sultan Tauct.[243] The name of this last signifies a Throne; and he was so named by the king, because he was informed of his birth at the time when he got quiet possession of the throne.  The eldest-born son of one of his legitimate wives has right to inherit the throne, and has a title signifying the Great Brother.  Although the others are not put to death as with the Turks, yet it is observed that they seldom long survive their fathers, being commonly employed on some dangerous expedition.

[Footnote 243:  These names seem to have been written by Terry from the ear.  By others, they are respectively named Cusero, Parvis, Churrum, Shahar, and Taucht.—­E.]

Akbar Shah, the father of the reigning Mogul, had threatened to disinherit him, for some abuse to Anar-Kalee, his most beloved wife, whose name signifies pomegranate kernel; but on his death-bed he restored him to the succession.  Akbar was wont, upon taking any displeasure at one of his grandees, to give them pills to purge their souls from their bodies, and is said to have come by his death in the following manner.  Intending to give one of these pills to a nobleman who had incurred his displeasure, and meaning to take at the same time a cordial pill himself, while he was cajoling the destined victim with flattering speeches, he, by mistake, took the poisoned pill himself, and gave the cordial to the nobleman.  This carried him off in a few days, by a mortal flux of blood.[244]

[Footnote 244:  Neque enim lex justior ulla est, quam necis artifices arte perire sua.—­Purch.]

The character of Jehanguire, the reigning Mogul, seems strangely compounded of opposite extremes.  He is at times excessively cruel, and at other times extremely mild.  He is himself much given to excess in wine, yet severely punishes that fault in others.  His subjects know not what it is to disobey his commands, forgetting the natural bonds of private life, even those between father and son, in the fulfilment of their public duty.  He daily relieves numbers of the poor; and often, as a mark of his filial piety, is in use to carry the palanquin of his mother on his own shoulders.  He speaks with much reverence of our Saviour, but is offended by his cross and poverty, deeming them incompatible with his divine Majesty, though told that his humility was on purpose to subdue the pride of the world.

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