Here stood in chains the graceful Sulaiman, to receive his
sentence of death by slow poison with his poor young brother Sipihr
Shikoh, who had shared all his father's toils and dangers, and
witnessed his brutal murder.[26] Here sat Muhammad Shah, bandying
compliments with his ferocious conqueror, Nadir Shah, who had
destroyed his armies, plundered his treasury, stripped his throne,
and ordered the murder of a hundred thousand of the helpless
inhabitants of his capital, men, women, and children, in a general
massacre. The bodies of these people lay in the streets tainting the
air, while the two sovereigns sat here sipping their coffee, and
swearing to the most deliberate lies in the name of their God,
Prophet, and Koran;--all are now dust; that of the oppressor
undistinguishable from that of the oppressed.[27]
Within this apartment and over the side arches at one end is
inscribed in black letters the celebrated couplet, 'If there be a
paradise on the face of the earth, it is this--it is this--it is
this.[28] Anything more unlike paradise than this place now is can
hardly be conceived. Here are crowded together twelve hundred _kings_
and _queens_ (for all the descendants of the Emperors assume the
title of Salatin, the plural of Sultan) literally eating each other
up.
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