Excerpt from The Private Life of an Eastern King Together With Elihu Jan's Story or the Private Life of an Eastern Queen William Knighton, son of Richard I. Knighton and a member of the same family as his namesake Sir William Knighton, Keeper of the Privy Purse to George IV, was born in Dublin in 1833-4. He was educated at Glasgow and before he was twenty years of age became head master of the Normal School at Colombo. While in Ceylon he became the first Honorary Secretary of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and a partner in a coffee plantation. These activities arc reflected in two books written by him at the time: A History of Ceylon derived from native Chronicles, and Forest Life in Ceylon, 1854, in which lie describes some of his own experiences. From Colombo he went to Calcutta as Professor of History and Logic at the Hindu College. In 1855 The Private Life, of an Eastern King was published, and in 1860 Knighton was appointed by Lord Canning to the Oudh Commission, from which he retired in 1868. The preface of Elihu Jan's Story is dated from the Himalaya Club, Mussooric, June 1864, and Knighton had also contributed 'Village Life in Oudh ' to Fraser's Magazine. In 1883 he married Charlotte, daughter of Sir William Drake, K.C.B., member of the Legislative Council of the Cape of Good Hope, and on March 31, 1900, he died at St. Leonards, aged 66. Literary interests continued to engage much of Knighton's time after his retirement from India. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.