The Seven Cities of Delhi
buildings outside within a range of five hundred yards were swept away, and the palace has always since then been known as the Fort.
We have slightly anticipated a number of important events which had occurred meanwhile. Towards the end of the year 1857 the principal accessories to the Mutiny were indicted before military commissions. On the 13th of October two more sons of the old king, Mirza Bakhtawar Shah and Mirza Mahndu, having been found guilty, were shot in the Jumna riverbed by a party of riflemen. Then followed the trials of Nahar Singh, Raja of Ballabgarh, and Nawab Abdul Rahman Khan of Jhajjar, against whom the principal witness was Sir John Theophilus Metcalfe. The father of the former chief had been g^ranted the lands surrounding: Ballabgarh, a few miles south of Delhi, by General Lord Lake, in 1803, on condition that he should adequately police the Muttra Road as far as Palwal. In those days dense jungle bordered the road on either side, while thieves, dacoits, and Thugs carried on their nefarious trade unmolested. Now the opening of the Agra Canal has caused the forest to disappear, and crops have taken its place. Both these chiefs were found guilty, their lands were confiscated by Government, and they themselves were hanged298
