Mulika Zumanee, queen of the age, was a daughter of a Hindoo of the
Koormee caste, who borrowed from his neighbour, Futteh Morad, the sum
of sixty rupees, to purchase cloth. He soon after died, leaving a
widow, and a daughter named Dolaree, then five years of age. They
were both seized and confined for the debt by Futteh Morad; but, on
the mother's consenting to leave her daughter in bondage for the
debt, she was released. Futteh Morad's sister, Kuramut-on Nissa,
adopted Dolaree, who was a prepossessing child, and brought her up as
her daughter; but finding, as she grew up, that she was too intimate
with Roostum, the son by a former husband of her brother's second
wife, she insisted on their being married, and they were so. Futteh
Morad soon after died, and his first wife turned the second, with her
first son, Roostum, and his wife, Dolaree, and the two sons which she
had borne to Futteh Morad--Futteh Allee Khan and Warus Allee Khan--
out of her house. They went to Futteh Morad's aunt, Bebee Mulatee, a
learned woman, who resided as governess in the house of Nawab
Mohubbet Khan, at Roostumnugger, near Lucknow, and taught his
daughters to read the Koran. Finding Dolaree to be not the most
faithful of wives to Roostum, she would not admit them into the
Nawab's house, but she assisted them with food and raiment; and
Roostum entered the service--as a groom--of a trooper in the King's
cavalry, called Abas Kolee Beg.
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