Agra, then an unpeopled waste, soon became a city, and Fathpur-Sikri
was deserted.[21] Cities which, like this, are maintained by the
public establishments that attend and surround the courts of
sovereign princes, must always, like this, become deserted when these
sovereigns change their resting-places. To the history of the rise
and progress, decline and fall, of how many cities is this the key?
Close to the tomb of the saint is another containing the remains of a
great number of his descendants, who continue to enjoy, under the
successors of Akbar, large grants of rent-free lands for their own
support, and for that of the mosque and mausoleum. These grants have,
by degrees, been nearly all resumed;[22] and, as the repair of the
buildings is now entrusted to the public officers of our government,
the surviving members of the saint's family, who still reside among
the ruins, are extremely poor. What strikes a European most in going
over these palaces of the Moghal Emperors is the want of what a
gentleman of fortune in his own country would consider elegantly
comfortable accommodations. Five hundred pounds a year would at the
present day secure him more of this in any civilized country of
Europe or America than the greatest of those Emperors could command.
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