On the 12th, Zafar Khan, who had been removed from the Subah of Behar, came and waited on me, and made an offering of 100 muhrs, as well as three elephants. On the 15th of Day I increased the mansab of Qasim Khan, the Subahdar of Bengal, by 1,000 personal and horse, so as to make it 4,000 personal and horse. As the diwan and bakhshi of Bengal, Husain Beg and Tahir, had not done approved service, Mukhlis Khan, who was one of the confidential servants of the Court, was nominated to these duties. I conferred on him a mansab of 2,000 personal and 700 horse, and also gave him a standard. The duty of `arz-mukarrir (reviser of petitions) I ordered to be given to Dayanat Khan. On the 25th, Friday, the weighing of my son Khurram took place. Up to the present year, when he is 24 years old, and is married and has children, he has never defiled himself with drinking wine. On this day, when the assembly for his weighing was held, I said to him: "Baba, thou hast become the father of children, and kings and kings' sons have drunk wine. To-day, which is the day of thy being weighed, I will give thee wine to drink, and give thee leave to drink it on feast days and at the time of the New Year, and at all great festivals. But thou must observe the path of moderation, for wise men do not consider it right to drink to such an extent as to destroy the understanding, and it is necessary that from drinking only profit should be derived." Bu `Ali (Avicenna), who is one of the most learned of hakims and physicians, has written this quatrain--
"Wine is a raging enemy, a prudent friend; A little is an antidote, but much a snake's poison. In much there is no little injury, In a little there is much profit."
With much trouble wine was given to him. I had not drunk it till I was 15 [473] years old, except when in the time of my infancy two or three times my mother and wet-nurses gave it by way of infantile remedy. They asked for a little spirit from my revered father, and gave it me to the extent of a tola mixed with water and rosewater to take away a cough, designating it as medicine. At the time when the camp of my revered father had been pitched in order to put down the disturbance of Yusufza'e Afghans at the fort of Attock, which is on the bank of the Nilab (Indus) River, one day I had mounted to go out to hunt. When I had moved about a good deal and the signs of weariness had set in, a gunner of the name of Ustad Shah-quli, a wonderful gunner out of those under my revered uncle Mirza Muhammad Hakim, said to me that if I would take a cup of wine it would drive away the feeling of being tired and heavy. It was in the time of my youth, and as I felt disposed towards it I ordered Mahmud, the Ab-dar (person in charge of drinking water, etc.), to go to the house of Hakim `Ali and bring me an intoxicating draught. He sent me [474] the amount of one and a half cups of yellow wine of a sweet taste in a little bottle. I drank it, and found its quality agreeable. After that I took to drinking wine, and increased it from day to day until wine made from grapes ceased to intoxicate me, and I took to drinking arrack (`araq, spirits), and by degrees during nine years my potions rose to twenty cups of doubly distilled spirits, fourteen during the daytime and the remainder at night. The weight of this was six Hindustani sirs or one and a half maunds of Iran. The extent of my eating in those days was a fowl [475] with bread and vegetables (lit. radish). [476] In that state of matters no one had the power to forbid me, and matters went to such a length that in the crapulous state from the excessive trembling of my hand I could not drink from my own cup, but others had to give it me to drink, until I sent for Hakim Humam, brother of Hakim Abu-l-fath, who was of the most intimate with my revered father, and informed him of my state. He, with excessive sincerity and unfeigned burning of heart, said to me without hesitation, "Lord of the world, by the way in which you drink spirits, God forbid it, but in six months matters will come to such a pass that there will be no remedy for it." As his words were said out of pure good-will, and sweet life was dear to me, they made an impression on me, and from that day I began to lessen my allowance and set myself to take filuniya. [477] In proportion as I diminished my liquor, I increased the amount of filuniya.