On the death of her husband she was requested to take command of the force by all the Europeans and natives that composed it, as the only possible mode of keeping them together, since the son was known to be altogether unfit.  She consented, and was regularly installed in the charge by the Emperor Shah Alam.  Her chief officer was a Mr. Paoli, a German, who soon after took an active part in providing the poor imbecile old Emperor with a prime minister, and got himself assassinated on the restoration, a few weeks after, of his rival.[17] The troops continued in the same state of insubordination, and the Begam was anxious for an opportunity to show that she was determined to be obeyed.

While she was encamped with the army of the prime minister of the time at Mathura,[18] news was one day brought to her that two slave girls had set fire to her houses at Agra, in order that they might make off with their paramours, two soldiers of the guard she had left in charge.  These houses had thatched roofs, and contained all her valuables, and the widows, wives, and children of her principal officers.  The fire had been put out with much difficulty and great loss of property; and the two slave girls were soon after discovered in the bazaar at Agra, and brought out to the Begam’s camp.  She had the affair investigated in the usual summary form; and their guilt being proved to the satisfaction of all present, she had them flogged till they were senseless, and then thrown into a pit dug in front of her tent for the purpose, and buried alive.  I had heard the story related in different ways, and I now took pains to ascertain the truth; and this short narrative may, I believe, be relied upon.[19]

An old Persian merchant, called the Aga, still resided at Sardhana, to whom I knew that one of the slave girls belonged.  I visited him, and he told me that his father had been on intimate terms with Sombre, and when he died his mother went to live with his widow, the Begam—­that his slave girl was one of the two-that his mother at first protested against her being taken off to the camp, but became on inquiry satisfied of her guilt—­and that the Begam’s object was to make a strong impression upon the turbulent spirit of her troops by a severe example.  ‘In this object’, said the old Aga, ’she entirely succeeded; and for some years after her orders were implicitly obeyed; had she faltered on that occasion she must have lost the command—­she would have lost that respect, without which it would have been impossible for her to retain it a month.  I was then a boy; but I remember well that there were, besides my mother and sisters, many respectable females that would have rather perished in the flames than come out to expose themselves to the crowd that assembled to see the fires; and had the fires not been put out, a great many lives must have been lost; besides, there were many old people and young children who could not have escaped.’  The old Aga was going