'How he disendowed the Gaol—stopped at once the city drain;
Turned to beauty fair and frail—got his senses back again;
Doubled taxes, cesses, all; cleared away each new-built thana;
Turned the two-lakh Hospital into a superb zenana;
'Heaped upon the Bukhshi Sahib wealth and honours manifold;
Clad himself in Eastern garb—squeezed his people as of old:
Happy, happy Kolazai! never more will Rustum Beg
Play to catch the Viceroy's eye. He prefers the "simpkin" peg.'
A few samples of the wisdom, which either is or is not the product of more or less extensive experience of Anglo-India, may be given as completing the picture. They come to us under the guise of 'certain maxims of Hafiz.'
Thus does the Mohammedan poet and sage remark with a kindly charity on the ways of infidel officials, civil or military:
'Yea, though a Kafir die, to him is remitted Jehannum
If he borrowed in life from a native at sixty per cent, per annum.'
Hafiz has his own opinions as to the true nature of the foreign râj:
'Who are the rulers of Ind—to whom shall we bow the knee?
Make your peace with the women, and men will make you L.G.'
Yet let us beware of one of the methods in vogue for achieving this purpose:
