Note 32 — The Tenth New Year’s Festival after my auspicious Accession.

With much trouble wine was given to him. I had not drunk it till I was 1532 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 Yūsufzaʾe Afghans at the fort of Attock, which is on the bank of the Nīlāb (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 Ustād S͟hāh-qulī, a wonderful gunner out of those under my revered uncle Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḥakīm, 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 Mahmūd, the Āb-dār (person in charge of drinking water, etc.), to go to the house of Ḥakīm ʿAlī and bring me an intoxicating draught. He sent me33 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 (ʿaraq, 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 fowl34 with bread and vegetables (lit. radish).35 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 Ḥakīm Humām, brother of Ḥakīm Abū-l-fatḥ, 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 filūnīyā.36 In proportion as I diminished my liquor, I increased the amount of filuniya.