has composed books of rules [for the acquisition of it]. From this
cause, the language of _Hindustan_ has become general throughout the
provinces, and has been polished anew; otherwise no one conceives
his own turban, language and behaviour, to be improper. If you ask
a countryman, he censures the citizen's idiom, and considers his own
the best; "well, the learned only know [what is correct]." [40]

When _Ahmad Shah Abdali_, came from _Kabul_ and pillaged the city of
_Dilli, Shah 'Alam_ was in the east. [41] No master or protector of the
country remained, and [42] the city became without a head. True it is,
that the city only flourished from the prosperity of the throne. All at
once it was overwhelmed with calamity: its principal inhabitants were
scattered, and fled wherever they could. To whatever country they went,
their own tongue was adulterated by mixing with the people there; and
there were many who, after an absence of ten to five years, from some
cause or other, returned to _Dilli_, and stayed there. How can they
speak the pure language of _Dilli_? somewhere or other they will slip;
but the person who bore all misfortunes, and remained fixed at _Dilli_
and whose five or ten anterior generations lived in that city, and who
mixed in the company of the great, and the assemblies and processions
of the people, who strolled in its streets for a length of time,
and even after quitting it, kept his language pure from corruption,
his style of speaking will certainly be correct. This humble being
[viz. _Mir Amman_], wandering through many cities, and viewing their
sights, has at last arrived at this place.