birth-place of their fabulous Krishna, or Apollo. In consequence it swarms with paroquets, peacocks, brahminy bulls, and monkeys, which last are seen sitting on the tops of the houses, and running along the walls and roofs like cats. They are very troublesome, and admitted to be so by the Hindoos themselves, but so much respected that, a few years since, two young officers who shot at one near Bindrabund, were driven into the Jumna, where they perished, by a mob of Brahmins and devotees. In other respects, also, Muttra is a striking town, and a good deal reminded me of Benares, the houses being very high with the same sort of ornaments as in that city. There is a large ruinous castle on the shore of the Jumna, and a magnificent, though dilapidated mosque, with four very tall minarets. In the centre, or nearly so, of the town, Colonel Penny took us into the court of a beautiful temple, or dwelling-house, for it seemed to be designed for both in one, lately built, and not yet quite finished, by Gokul Pattu Singh, Sindia's treasurer, and who has also a principal share in a great native banking-house, one branch of which is fixed at Muttra. The building is enclosed by a small but richly-carved gateway, with a flight of steps which leads from the street to a square court, cloistered round, and containing in the centre a building also square, supported by a triple row of pillars, all which, as well as the ceiling, are richly carved, painted, and gilt. The effect, internally, is much like that of the Egyptian tomb, of which the model was exhibited in London by Belzoni; externally, the carving is very beautiful. The cloisters round were represented to us as the intended habitation of the Brahmins attached to the fane; and in front, towards the street, were to be apartments for the founder in his occasional visits to Muttra.

The cantonments are separated from the rest of the town, by a small interval of broken ground covered with ruins. The buildings are very extensive and scattered over a wide plain, but the greater part of them unoccupied, the forces now maintained here not being half so numerous as they used to be before the establishment of Nusseerabad and Neemuch, and the consequent removal of our advanced corps to a great distance westward. Still Muttra is an important station, from the vicinity of many wild and independent, though, at present, friendly Rajas, and from its forming a necessary link between Agra and the northern stations.

We breakfasted with Colonel Penny, who had provided an empty bungalow for Divine service. I had a congregation of about twenty-five persons, six of whom staid for the Sacrament, and I afterwards baptized some children. A miserable leper came soon after to ask alms, who said he had heard of my passing through the country and had come two days' journey to beg from

me. He was quite naked except a very small rag round his waist; his fingers had all nearly rotted off, and his legs and feet were in a wretched condition. I have seen, I think, fewer of these objects in Hindostan than in Bengal, but those I have seen are in every respect most pitiable. In addition to the horrors of the disease itself, the accursed religion of the Hindoos hold them out as objects of Heaven's wrath, and, unless they expiate their sins by. being buried alive, as doomed in a future life to Padalon! They are consequently deprived of caste, can possess no property, and share far less than most other mendicants in the alms which Hindoo bounty dispenses in general with a tolerably liberal hand.

About two o'clock the soubahdar and the other pilgrims returned in high spirits, having all bathed and gone through the necessary ceremonies. I completed their happiness for the day by an arrangement which I made, that a guard of honour which Colonel Penny had assigned me should stand sentry during my stay in Muttra, so that my escort should have the evening and night to themselves. There was no fear of this permission being abused; they were all tired, they had eaten their meal,-and the only further thing they desired was to sleep the twelve hours round.

We dined with Colonel Penny, and met a numerous party of officers. The chief subjects of conversation were Nusseerabad, whither I was going and which several of the party had recently left, and the late attack and plunder of Calpee. Of Nusseerabad the most dismal account was given, as a barren plain on the verge of the great salt desert, with very little water, and that little bad, and only one single tree in the whole cantonment. I know not from what singular fatality it has arisen, that almost all the principal establishments of the English in India have been fixed in bad situations. The reason which I have heard given is the unwillingness of Government to interfere with the comforts of their subjects, or to turn out people from their farms and villages, which has compelled them to fix on spots previously uninhabited and untilled, which of course, in an ancient peopled country, have generally been neglected in consequence of some natural disadvantage. But it would be so easy, at a moderate rate, to recompense any Zemindar or Ryut whom a new cantonment inconvenienced; and the bad effects of an unwholesome, or otherwise ill situated station are so great, that this is a reason which, though it was gravely given, I could hardly hear with gravity. The fact, however, is certain; Secrole, the cantonments at Lucknow, nay, Calcutta itself, are all abominably situated. I have heard the same of Madras; and now the lately settled cantonment of Nusseerabad appears to be as objectionable as any of them.

The affair at Calpee has excited great surprise not unmixed with alarm. Many of the party maintained that Sindia was at the bottom of the transaction, and that it was the harbinger of a new war in central India; but one gentleman, who came lately from Mhow, had no suspicion of the kind; and though he thought it not unlikely that the marauders in question had been assembled in Sindia's territories, he did not think that the Maharaja was himself inclined to break with us.

January 10.-This morning's stage was eight coss, to a small village called Furrah; it is built in a great measure within the enclosure of what has been, evidently, a very extensive serai, whose walls seem to have been kept up as a defence to the village. They have, however, not been its only defence, since on a little hill immediately above it is a square mud fort, with a round bastion at each flank, and a little outwork before the gate. It is now empty and neglected, but has evidently been in recent use, and might easily be again put into sufficient repair to answer every purpose for which such a little fortress could be supposed calculated. Most of the villages in this part of Hindostan were anciently provided with a similar fastness, where the peasantry, their families, and cattle, might seek refuge in case of the approach of robbers or enemies. The strength of the British Government, and the internal peace which has flowed from it, have made these precautions, as well as the walls and towers of the greater towns, be almost universally neglected, though the recent misfortune at Calpee appears to prove that such means of defence may yet occasionally have their value.

The people and tusseldar of Furrah were very dilatory in bringing supplies, and the sepoys were so cold, hungry, and indignant, that I thought there would have been broken heads. The tusseldar at length made his appearance in a hackery hung with red cloth, and drawn by two very fine bullocks, which trotted almost as well as the common horses of the country. He was followed by the usual aids, and matters were reconciled. The peasantry, my servants complained, were not only negligent, but uncivil, and seemed to have heard, probably an exaggerated statement, of the sack of Calpee.

Soon after we had encamped, a numerous party of faquirs, and other similar vagabonds, like us, as it seemed, on their travels, appeared, and pitched their tents at a little distance. Dr. Smith foretold that we should lose some property by this contiguity, but there was no avoiding it, since neither in law nor justice could men in the open field object to others, travelling like themselves, taking up their abode in the same vicinity. In one respect, they gave us less trouble than might have been expected, since they did not beg. A party of them, however, came forwards with a

472

ESCAPE OF TRIMBUKJEE.

musician, and a boy dressed up in adjutant's feathers with a bill of the same bird fastened to his head, and asked leave to show off some tricks in tumbling and rope-dancing. On my assenting, in less time than I could have supposed possible, four very long bamboos were fixed in the ground, and a slack-rope suspended between them, on which the boy, throwing off his bird's dress, and taking a large balancing-pole in his hand, began to exhibit a series of tricks which proved him to be a funambulist of considerable merit. He was a little and very thin animal, but broadshouldered and well made, and evidently possessed of no common share of strength as well as of agility and steadiness. Meantime, while he was gamboling above, the musician below, who was an old man, and whose real or assumed name was Hajee Baba, went through all the usual jests and contortions of our English "Mr. Merryman," sometimes affecting great terror at his companion's feats and the consequence of his falling,-sometimes bidding him "Salam to the Sahib Log," or challenging him to still greater feats of agility and dexterity.

Our road, during great part of this day's journey, had lain by the side of the Jumna, which is here very pretty, a wide and winding stream, with woody banks, and the fields in its vicinity more fertile and green than any which I have for a long time looked on. We saw a small vessel with masts and sails dropping down the river; but, except during the rains, its navigation is here so tedious and uncertain that few boats ever come up so high.

I heard this morning an account which interested and amused me, of the manner in which the Maharatta chief, Trimbukjee, whom I saw a prisoner at Chunar, had effected his escape from the British the first time he was seized by them. He was kept in custody at Tannah, near Bombay; and while there, a commonlooking Maharatta groom, with a good character in his hand, came to offer his services to the commanding officer. He was accepted, and had to keep his horse under the window of Trimbukjee's prison. Nothing remarkable was observed in his conduct, except a more than usual attention to his horse, and a habit, while currying and cleaning him, of singing verses of Maharatta songs, all apparently relating to his trade. At length Trimbukjee disappeared, and the groom followed him; on which it was recollected that his singing had been made up of verses like the following:

"Behind the bush the bowmen hide,

The horse beneath the tree;

Where shall I find a knight will ride

The jungle paths with me?

There are five and fifty coursers there,

And four and fifty men;

When the fifty-fifth shall mount his steed,

The Deckan thrives again!"

This might have been a stratagem of the Scottish border, so complete a similarity of character and incident does a resemblance of habit and circumstance produce among mankind.

January 11.-This morning we arrived at Secundra, nine coss from Furrah, a ruinous village and without a bazar, but remarkable for the magnificent tomb of Acbar, the most splendid building in its way which I had yet seen in India. It stands in a square area of about forty English acres, enclosed by an embattled wall, with octagonal towers at the angles surmounted by open pavilions, and four very noble gateways of red granite, the principal of which is inlaid with white marble, and has four high marble minarets. The space within is planted with trees and divided into green alleys, leading to the central building, which is a sort of solid pyramid surrounded externally with cloisters, galleries, and domes, diminishing gradually on ascending it, till it ends in a square platform of white marble, surrounded by most elaborate lattice-work of the same material, in the centre of which is a small altar tomb, also of white marble, carved with a delicacy and beauty which do full justice to the material, and to the graceful forms of Arabic characters which form its chief ornament. At the bottom of the building, in a small but very lofty vault, is the real tomb of this great monarch, plain and unadorned, but also of white marble. There are many other ruins in the vicinity, some of them apparently handsome, but Acbar's tomb leaves a stranger little time or inclination to look at any thing else. Government have granted money for the repair of the tomb, and an officer of engineers is employed on it. A serjeant of artillery is kept in the place, who lives in one of the gateways; his business is to superintend a plantation of sissoo-trees made by Dr. Wallich. He says the soil does not appear to suit them; they grow, however, but by no means rapidly. For fruit trees, particularly the orange, the soil is very favourable, and the tall tamarinds and the generally neglected state of the garden afford more picturesque points of view than large buildings usually are seen in.

The next morning, January 12th, we proceeded to Mr. Irving's house near Agra, about six miles, through a succession of ruins, little less contiguous and desolate than those round Delhi. Í noticed, however, that some of the old tombs have been formed into dwelling houses, and Mr. Irving's is one of this description. I found there a very comfortable room prepared for myself, with plenty of space in the compound for my encampment.

In the evening, I went with Mr. Irving to see the city, the fort, and the Jumna Musjeed. The city is large, old, and ruinous, with little to attract attention beyond that picturesque mixture of houses, balconies, projecting roofs, and groups of people in the eastern dress, which is common to all Indian towns. The VOL. I.-60