Note 51 — The Eighteenth New Year’s Feast after the Auspicious Accession

“A red51 tongue gives the green head to the winds.” As the huntsmen reported that there was a tigress in this neighbourhood, by the mischief caused by which the inhabitants were oppressed, I ordered Fidāʾī K. to take elephants with him and surround it. Mounting myself, I followed him into the forest. It soon came to view, and with one shot from my gun its affairs were finished. One day I was enjoying myself with sport, and caught a black partridge with a hawk. I ordered them to open its crop in my presence. A mouse it had swallowed whole came out of its crop, and which was not yet digested. I was greatly astonished that the pipe of its gullet, small as it was, should swallow a whole mouse and how it had done so. Without exaggeration, if anyone had told me the tale I should not have believed it. As I saw this myself I have recorded it on account of its strangeness. On the 6th of the month Delhi became the abode of good fortune.