hold their evidence above that of the prophets, Moses, Abraham, and Elijah.  It is dreadful to think how much mischief these telescopes may do.  No, sir, let us hold fast by the prophets; what they tell us is the truth, and the only truth that we can entirely rely upon in this life.  I would not hold the evidence of all the telescopes in the world as anything against one word uttered by the humblest of the prophets named in the Old or New Testament, or the holy Koran.  The prophets, sir, keep to the prophets, and throw aside your telescopes—­there is no truth in them; some of them turn people upside down, and make them walk upon their heads; and yet you put their evidence against that of the prophets.’[68]

Nothing that I could say would, after this, convince the Nawab that there was any virtue in telescopes; his religions feeling had been greatly excited against them; and had Galileo, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Newton, Laplace, and the Herschels, all been present to defend them, they would not have altered his opinion of their demerits.  The old man has, I believe, a shrewd suspicion that they are inventions of the devil to lead men from the right way; and were he told all that these great men have discovered through their means, he would be very much disposed to believe that they were incarnations of his satanic majesty playing over again with ‘durbins’ (telescopes) the same game which the serpent played with the apple in the garden of Eden.

    Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid;
    Leave them to God above:  him serve and fear;
    Of other creatures, as him pleases best,
    Wherever placed, let him dispose:  joy thou
    In what he gives to thee, this Paradise
    And thy fair Eve:  heaven is for thee too high
    To know what passes there:  be lowly wise: 
    Think only what concerns thee, and thy being: 
    Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there
    Live, in what state, condition, or degree: 
    Contented that thus far hath been revealed,
    Not of earth only, but of highest heaven.’[69]

Notes: 

1.  Chapter 75 post is devoted to the history of the Begam Samru (Sumroo).  The ‘great street’ is the celebrated Chandni Chauk, a very wide thoroughfare.  The branch of the canal which runs down the middle of it is now covered over.  The Begam’s house is now occupied by the Delhi Bank (Fanshawe, p, 49).

2. Ante, chapter 54, note 14.

3.  The Emperors were not in the least ashamed of this practice, and robbed the families of rich merchants as well as those of officials.  In fact they levied in a rough way the high ‘death duties’ so much admired by Radicals with small expectations.  Some remarkable cases are related in detail by Bernier (Bernier, Travels, ed.  Constable, and V. A. Smith (1914), pp. 163-7).  When Aurangzeb heard of the death of the Governor of Kabul, he gave orders to seize the belongings of the deceased, so that ‘not even a piece of straw be left’ (Bilimoria, Letters of Aurungzebe, No. xcix).