2.  The common antelope, or black buck (Antilope bezoartica, or cervicapra) feed in herds, sometimes numbering many hundreds, in the open plains, especially those of black soil.  Men armed with matchlocks can scarcely get a shot except by adopting artifices similar to those described in the text.

3.  Sixteen species of hawks, belonging to several genera, are trained in India.  They are often fed by being allowed to suck the blood from the breasts of live pigeons, and their eyes are darkened by means of a silken thread passed through holes in the eyelids.  ’Hawking is a very dull and very cruel sport.  A person must become insensible to the sufferings of the most beautiful and most inoffensive of the brute creation before he can feel any enjoyment in it.  The cruelty lies chiefly in the mode of feeding the hawks’ (Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, vol. i, p, 109).  Asoka forbade the practice by the words:  ‘The living must not be fed with the living’ (Pillar Edict V, c. 243 B.C., in V. A. Smith, Asoka, 2nd ed. (1909), p. 188).

4.  The wording of this sentence is unfortunate, and it is not easy to understand why the author mentioned Bhopal.  The principality of Bhopal was formed by Dost Mohammed Khan, an Afghan officer of Aurangzeb, who became independent a few years after that sovereign’s death in 1707.  Since that time the dynasty has always continued to be Muhammadan.  The services of Sikandar Begam in the Mutiny are well known.  Malwa is the country lying between Bundelkhand, on the east, and Rajputana, on the west, and includes Bhopal.  Most of the states in this region are now ruled by Hindoos, but the local dynasty which ruled the kingdom of Malwa and Mandu from A.D. 1401 to 1531 was Musalman. (See Thomas, Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of Dehli, pp. 346-53.)

5.  All near relatives succeed to a Muhammadan’s estate, which is divided, under complicated rules, into the necessary number of shares.  A son’s share is double that of a daughter.  As between themselves all sons share equally.

6.  Bernier’s Revolutions of the Mogul Empire. [W.  H. S.] The author seems to have used either the London edition of 1671, entitled The History of the Late Revolution of the Empire of the Great Mogul, or one of the reprints of that edition.  The anecdote referred to is called by Bernier ‘an uncommonly good story’.  Aurangzeb made a long speech, ending by dismissing the unlucky pedagogue with the words:  ’Go! withdraw to thy native village.  Henceforth let no man know either who thou art, or what is become of thee.’ (Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, pp. 154-161, ed.  Constable and V. A, Smith, 1914.) Manucci repeats the story with slight variations (Storie da Mogor, vol. ii, pp. 29-33).

7.  Compare the forcible description of the state of the Delhi royal family in Chapter 76, post.  The old emperor’s pension was one hundred thousand rupees a month.  The events of the Mutiny effected a considerable clearance, though the number of persons claiming relationship with the royal house is still large.  A few of these have taken service under the British Government, but have not distinguished themselves.