The Captive Ladie/Preface

The following tale is founded on a circumstance pretty generally known in India, and, if I mistake not, noticed by some European writers.—A little before the famous Indian expeditions of Mahommed of Ghizni, the King of Kanoje celebrated the "Raj-shooio Jugum" or, as I have translated it in the text, the "Feast of Victory." Almost all the contemporary Princes, being unable to resist his power, attended it, with the exception of the King of Delhi, who, being a lineal descendant of the great Pandû Princes—the heroes of the far-famed "Mohabarut" of Vyasa—refused to sanction by his presence the assumption of a dignity—for the celebration of this Festival was an universal assertion of claims to being considered as the lord paramount over the whole country—which by right of descent belonged to his family alone. The king of Kanoje, highly incensed at this refusal, had an image of gold made to represent the absent chief.—On the last day of the Feast, the king of Delhi, having, with a few chosen followers, entered the palace in disguise, carried off this image, together, as some say, with one of the Princesses Royal whose hand he had once solicited but in vain, owing to his obstinate maintenance of the rights of his ancient house.—The fair Princess, however, was retaken and sent to a solitary castle to be out of the way of her pugnacious lover, who, eventually effected her escape in the disguise of a Bhât or Indian ​Troubadour. The King of Kanoje never forgave this insult, and, when Mahommed invaded the kingdom of Delhi, sternly refused to aid his son-in-law in expelling a foe, who soon after crushed him also.—I have slightly deviated from the above story in representing my heroine as sent to confinement before the celebration of the "Feast of Victory."

I have, I am afraid, many reasons to apologize to the Public for the imperfections which have crept into the following Poem. It was originally composed in great haste for the columns of a local Journal,—"The Madras Circulator and General Chronicle,"—in the midst of scenes where it required a more than ordinary effort to abstract one's thoughts from the ugly realities of Life.—Want and Poverty with the "battalions" of "Sorrows" which they bring, have but little inspiration for their Victim!—

Royapooram.