PREPARATIONS FOR JOURNEY.

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sufficient to carry us to Guzerat. At Nusseerabad no supplies of any kind are to be looked for. A solar hat and green shade were next recommended, and pressed on my acceptance by the kindness of Mrs. Irving. A spare saddle, and a store of horse-shoes, were also declared to be necessary, and, in short, so many things were to be procured, that, had I been actually going into the interior of Africa, a less formidable preparation might, I should have thought, have sufficed. Some of my bearers, too, declared they neither would nor dared go beyond the limits of the Company's Raj! This was at first likely to be the greatest difficulty of all, since there were at Agra none to be obtained who would undertake to go further than Nusseerabad, and there, there are absolutely none to be had. A small advance of wages, however, induced most of them to promise anew they would "follow me to the world's end. The very deep and difficult wells which I am told to expect in our progress to the south-west, made it necessary for me to hire another bheestie, to draw water for myself and my horses. All these difficulties I had little doubt that I should find extremely exaggerated; but I was compelled, in my local ignorance, to follow the opinions of those who had local knowledge, and who evidently considered my journey as one of an arduous nature.

For the alarm and reluctance expressed by the natives of Hindostan to go into these western states, many good reasons may be given. But a very few years have passed away since the British Government had neither influence nor authority in these districts, which, between the Maharattas, the Rajpoots, the Mewattees, and the Seiks, were in a constant state of intestine war, and as dangerous for travellers as the interior of Arabia is at this moment. At that time a person wishing to go into these provinces, could not, as I am assured, have obtained bearers for less than eight or ten rupees a month; and the merchants travelled in caravans, paying high rates of protection to every little plundering Raja. Now the Maharattas are subdued and driven out of the country, the Mewattees are in a great measure reclaimed, -the Seiks are fully employed at home, and the Rajpoot princes and nobles are kept in awe by British Residents and British garrisons. It still, however, is spoken of as a wild, dreary, and inhospitable country, where provisions and water, fruit and forage, are scarce, where thieves are numerous, and regular inhabitants few, where a servant must look for inconvenience and fatigue, and where he can expect few of those circumstances of amusement or gratification, which, in Hindostan proper, make many of this class of men prefer a rambling to a settled and stationary service. I was told to expect at this place a great desertion of my Bengalee servants also. But nothing of the kind has occurred:

even if they talk with some dismay of accompanying me through the desert and over the sea, they like still less the notion of finding their own way back to Calcutta. They all say they never heard of such a journey as mine before, and that "neither mountains nor any thing else stand in my way." This is all absurd enough at the present moment; but the recollection of where 1 am, and the circumstances of convenience and safety under which I have traversed, and am about, if it please God, to traverse regions which are laid down as a terra incognita in Arrowsmith's map of 1816, ought to make, and I hope does make, a strong impression on my mind, of thankfulness to that Great God, whose providence has opened to the British nation so wide and so untried a field of usefulness, and of anxiety, lest we should any of us, in our station, fall short of those duties which this vast increase of power and dominion imposes on us. I am often ready to break into lamentations that, where so much is to do in my own peculiar profession, the means at my disposal enable me to accomplish so little. But I ought to be anxious, far more, not to fall short in my exertions of those means which I have, and to keep my attention steadily fixed on professional objects, in order that, what I cannot do myself, I may at least lead others to think of, and perhaps to accomplish.

The thannadar of Kerowlee is a very intelligent old soldier, with certificates of good conduct from all the officers of distinction who commanded in Lord Lake's Maharatta war, and able to speak of most of the events which occurred in it. I was sorry to find that during the early part of that war, some of the British officers disgraced themselves by rapacity and extortion. Such instances, I believe and hope, are now neither of frequent nor

easy occurrence.

January 18.-We went on this morning to Futtehpoor-sicri, about ten miles, through a verdant and tolerably well cultivated country, but with few trees. We passed Kerowlee, a small town, with a ruined rampart and towers, seated on a low gravelly hill, with a few poor attempts at gardens round it. The country all seemed to have benefited greatly by the late rain, which is still standing in pools in many parts of the road. There had, indeed, been more, and more recent rain here than what we saw in Delhi. The approach to Futtehpoor is striking; it is surrounded by a high stone wall, with battlements and round towers, like the remaining part of the city walls at Oxford. Within this is a wide extent of ruined houses and mosques, interspersed with fields cultivated with rice and mustard, and a few tamarind trees, and nearly in the middle, on a high ridge of rocky hills, is a range of ruinous palaces, serais, and other public buildings, in the best style of Mussulman architecture; and to form the centre of the

picture, a noble mosque, in good repair, and in dimensions equal, should think, to the Jumna Musjeed of Delhi.

This town was the favourite residence of Acbar, and here, in his expeditions, he usually left his wives and children, under the care of his most trusted friend, Sheikh Soliman. The mosques, the palace, and the ramparts, are all Acbar's work, and nearly in the same style with the castle of Agra and his own tomb at Secundra. The two former are, however, plainer than this last, and there is a far less allowance of white marble.

We found our tents pitched among the ruins and rubbish, about a bow-shot from the foot of the hill, and in full view of the great gate of the mosque, which is approached by the noblest flight of steps I ever saw. The morning was still cool, and we determined to see the curiosities without loss of time. The steps of which I have spoken lead to a fine arch surmounted by a lofty tower; thence we pass into a quadrangle of about 500 feet square, with a very lofty and majestic cloister all round, a large mosque surmounted by three fine domes of white marble on the left hand, and opposite to the entrance, two tombs of very elaborate workmanship, of which that to the right contains several monuments of the imperial family; that to the left a beautiful chapel of white marble, the shrine of Sheikh Soliman, who had the good fortune to be a saint as well as a statesman.

The impression which this whole view produced on me will be appreciated when I say, that there is no quadrangle either in Oxford or Cambridge fit to be compared to it, either in size, or majestic proportions, or beauty of architecture. It is kept in substantial repair by the British Government, and its grave and solid style makes this an easier task than the intricate and elaborate inlaid work of Secundra and the Taje Mahal. The interior of the mosque itself is fine, and in the same simple character of grandeur, but the height of the portal tower, and the magnificence of the quadrangle, had raised my expectations too high, and I found that these were the greatest, as well as the most striking beauties of Futtehpoor.

A little to the right is the palace, now all in ruins, except a small part which is inhabited by the Tusseldar of the district. We rambled some time among its courts and through a range of stables worthy of an Emperor, consisting of a long and wide street, with a portico on each side fifteen feet deep, supported with carved stone pillars in front, and roofed with enormous slabs of stone, reaching from the colonnade to the wall. There are four buildings particularly worthy of notice, one a small but richly ornamented house, which is shown as the residence of Beerbal, the Emperor's favourite minister, whom the Mussulmans accuse of having infected him with the strange religious notions with which, VOL. 1.-61

in the latter part of his life, he sought to inoculate his subjects. Another is a very beautiful octagonal pavilion in the corner of the court, which appears to have been the zennana, and was variously stated to us to have been the Emperor's private study, or the bed-chamber of one of his wives who was a daughter of the Sultan of Constantinople. It has three large windows filled with an exquisite tracery of white marble, and all its remaining wall is carved with trees, bunches of grapes, and the figures of different kinds of birds and beasts, of considerable merit in their execution, but the two last disfigured by the bigotry of Aurungzebe, who, as is well known, sought to make amends for his own abominable cruelty and wickedness towards his father and brothers, by a more than usual zeal for the traditions and observances of Islam. The third is a little building which, if its traditional destination be correct, I wonder Aurungzebe allowed to stand. It consists merely of a shrine or canopy supported by four pillars, which the Mussulman ciceroni of the place pretend was devoted by Acbar to the performance of magical rites. Whatever its use may have been, it is not without beauty. The fourth is a singular pavilion, in the centre of which is a pillar or stone pulpit richly carved, approached by four stone galleries from different sides of the room, on which the Emperor used to sit on certain occasions of state, while his subjects were admitted below to present their petitions. It is a mere capriccio, with no merit except its carving, but is remarkable as being one of the most singular buildings I have seen, and commanding from its terraced roof a very advantageous view of the greater part of the city, and a wide extent of surrounding country.

Of this last much appears to have been laid out in an extensive lake, of which the dam is still to be traced, and the whole hill on which the palace stands bears marks of terraces and gardens, to irrigate which an elaborate succession of wells, cisterns, and wheels, appears to have been contrived adjoining the great mosque, and forcing up the water nearly to the height of its roof. The cisterns are still useful as receptacles for rain-water, but the machinery is long since gone to decay. On the whole, Futtehpoor is one of the most interesting places which I have seen in India, and it was to me the more so, because, as it happened, I had heard little about it, and was by no means prepared to expect buildings of so much magnitude and splendour.

Mr. Lushington was forced to leave me to return to Lucknow, and we parted with mutual hopes that we might often meet again, but in India how many chances are there against such hopes being accomplished! If his health is spared he will, I hope and believe, be a valuable man in this country, inasmuch as he has memory, application, good sense, excellent principles both religious and

moral; and, what I have seldom seen in young Indian civilians, a strong desire to conciliate the minds and improve the condition of the inhabitants of the country.

After dinner I again walked to the mosque, and went to the top of the gateway tower, which commands a very extensive view. The most remarkable object in the distance was the rampart of Bhurtpoor, eight coss from us, and hardly to be distinguished by the naked eye, but sufficiently visible with a pocket telescope. A number of miserable dependants on the religious establishment came up and begged for charity. One was blind, but officiated as porter so far as keeping the keys of the tower and other lockup places. Another was deaf and dumb, and filled the place of sweeper; there were also some poor old women who "abode," as they told me, "in the temple gate, and made prayer night and day." These people, as well as the two principal Muezzins who had been my ciceroni through the day, were very thankful for the trifles I gave them, and begged me in return "to eat some of the bread of the sanctuary," under which character they produced a few little round cakes of barley-meal stuck over with something like sugar. On leaving the building I was surprised to hear a deep-toned bell pealing from its interior, but on asking what it was, was told that it was only used to strike the hours on. Had I not asked the question, I might have been tempted to suppose (with the ingenious Master Peter in Don Quixote's celebrated puppet-show) that "the Moors really used bells in their churches as well as Christians." As it was, the sound had a pleasing effect, and increased the collegiate character of the building.

January 19.-We rode this morning ten miles through a tolerably cultivated country, but strangely overspread with ruins, to a large dilapidated village named Khanwah. In our way we had a heavy shower of rain, and rain continued to fall at intervals through the greater part of the day. On my arrival at Khanwah, I found that this place, though laid down in Arrowsmith's map as within the British boundary, was in truth a part of the territory of Bhurtpoor, and that for the two following marches 1 should also be under the Raja's authority. Ignorant of this circumstance myself, I had omitted to procure a purwanu, which might have been obtained in a few hours from his vakeel resident in Agra, and without which none of his officers were likely to give me any assistance in my progress through his country; the people were civil, but pleaded that they had received no notice or instructions concerning my arrival, and that, without orders, they could not venture to levy the necessary supplies on the peasants, who, on the other hand, were not willing to sell the grass and fuel which they had collected for their own use, unless they were called on to do so in a lawful manner. At last, after a