Page:History of India Vol 5.djvu/350

296 THE MEMOIRS OF JAHANGIR there. If these places were near lands belonging to the exchequer, the government officials were to carry out these provisions. 3. Rights of merchants and of inheritance of prop- erty. First, no one was to open the packages of merchants on the roads without their consent. Sec- ondly, when any infidel or Mussulman died in any part of my dominions, his property and effects were to be allowed to descend by inheritance without interference from any one. When there was no heir, officers were to be appointed to take charge of the property and to expend it according to the law of Islam in building mosques and shelters for travellers, as well as in re- pairing broken bridges and also in digging tanks and sinking wells. 4. Of wine and all kinds of intoxicating liquors. Wine and all sorts of intoxicating liquor were forbidden and might neither be made nor sold; although I myself have been accustomed to drink wine and from my eight- eenth year to the present, which is the thirty-eighth year of my age, have regularly partaken of it. In early days, when I craved for drink, I sometimes took as many as twenty cups of double-distilled liquor. In course of time it seriously affected me and I set about reducing the quantity. In the period of seven years I brought it down to five or six cups. My times of drinking varied; sometimes I began when two or three hours of the day remained; and sometimes I took it at night and a little in the day. I kept this up until my thirtieth year, when I resolved to drink only at night,