till his death the following year he was only half alive, yet he still endeavoured to conduct business, and sometimes he was mournfully carried in his palanquin at a parade of his troops on the plain below the Samman Burj of Lahore. But all knew that the end must soon come, and each of the powerful Sirdárs whom the fear of their master had alone restrained from flying at each other's throats, prepared for the struggle which was inevitable on his decease.
On various occasions he had been attended by English doctors, Murray in 1826 and M'Gregor after his paralytic seizure in 1834, but he had not found their prescriptions of much avail, partly from the intractable nature of the disease, partly because he would not give up hard drinking. He also tried electricity and galvanism. The visit of the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Henry Fane, with a number of English officers on the occasion of the marriage festivities of Prince Nao Nihál Singh, in March, 1837, had done the Mahárájá no good; for he thought it due to hospitality to set an example of drinking, which prepared him for the second paralytic stroke in 1838. During his last illness, Fakír Azizuddin, who was his medical adviser as well as his secretary, attended him with the utmost devotion, administering the medicine with his own hand and telling him news from all quarters. Other famous native practitioners were summoned; but he refused to see the English doctor whom the Governor-General sent him. But
