Of Lord Hastings I have not found that they have retained any very favourable impression. Yet the extent of his conquests, and his pleasing manners during his short visit, must, I should think, have struck them.

Allahabad stands in, perhaps, the most favourable situation which India affords for a great city, in a dry and healthy soil, on a triangle, at the junction of the two mighty streams, Gunga, and Jumna, with an easy communication with Bombay and Madras, and capable of being fortified so as to become almost impregnable. But though occasionally the residence of royalty, though generally inhabited by one of the Shah-zadehs, and still containing two or three fine ruins, it never appears to have been a great or magnificent city, and is now even more desolate and ruinous than Dacca, having obtained, among the natives, the name of " Fakeerabad," "beggar-abode." It may, however, revive to some greater prosperity, from the increase of the civil establishment attached to it. It is now the permanent station (the castrum Hybernum) of the Sudder Mofussil commission, a body of judges whose office is the same with regard to these provinces as that of the Sudder Dewannee Udawlut for the eastern parts of the empire. The necessity for such a special court had become very great. The remoteness of the Sudder Dewannee had made appeals to it almost impossible, and very great extortion and oppression had been committed by the native agents of the inferior and local courts, sometimes with the connivance, but more often

through the ignorance and inexperience of the junior magistrates and judges. They, when these provinces were placed under British Governors, having been previously employed in Bengal and Bahar, naturally took their Bengalee followers with them, a race regarded by the Hindostanees as no less foreigners than the English, and even more odious than Franks, from ancient prejudice, and from their national reputation of craft, covetousness, and cowardice. In fact, by one means or other, these Bengalees almost all acquired considerable landed property in a short time among them, and it has been the main business of the Sudder Mofussil Udawlut, to review the titles to all property acquired since the English Government entered the Dooab. In many instances they have succeeded in recovering all or part of extensive possessions to their rightful heirs, and the degree of confidence in the justice of their rulers, with which they have inspired the natives, is said to be very great. They make circuits during all the travelling months of the year, generally pitching their tents near towns, and holding their courts under trees, an arrangement so agreeable to Indian prejudices, that one of these judges said it was, in his opinion, one main source of their usefulness, inasmuch as an Indian of the humbler class, is really always under constraint and fear in a house, particularly if furnished in the European manner, and can neither attend to what is told him, nor tell his own story so well as in the open air, and amidst those objects from which all his

enjoyments are drawn, At Allahabad, however, where their permanent abodes are, these judges have a court-house, though a very humble one, thatched, and inconvenient.

The only considerable buildings or ruins in Allahabad are the fort, the Jumna Musjeed, and the serai and garden of Sultan Khosroo. The first stands on the point of the triangle formed by the two rivers, and is strong both naturally and artificially. It has been a very noble castle, but has suffered in its external appearance as much as it has, probably, gained in strength, by the modernization which it has undergone from its present masters, its lofty towers being pruned down into bastions and cavaliers, and its high stone rampart topped with turf parapets, and obscured by a green sloping glacis. It is still, however, a striking place, and its principal gate, surmounted by a dome, with a wide hall beneath surrounded by arcades and galleries, and ornamented with rude but glowing paintings, is the noblest entrance I ever saw to a place of arms. This has been, I think, injudiciously modernized without, after the Grecian or Italian style, but within, the high Gothic arches and Saracenic paintings remain. The barracks are very handsome and neat, something like those of Fort William, which the interior disposition of the fort a good deal resembles. On one side, however, is a large range of buildings, still in the oriental style, and containing some noble vaulted rooms, chiefly occupied as officers' quarters, and looking down from a considerable height on the rapid

stream and craggy banks of the Jumna. The Jumna and Ganges are here pretty nearly of equal width; the former is the more rapid of the two, and its navigation more dangerous from the rocky character of its bed, and its want of depth in the dry season. At present both streams were equally turbid, but in another month, I am told, we should have found the water of the Jumna clear as crystal, and strangely contrasted with the turbid yellow wave of the more sacred stream, which is, however, when allowed some little time to clear itself, by far the most palatable of the two, and preferred by all the city, both native and European.

The Jumna Musjeed, or principal mosque, is still in good repair, but very little frequented. It stands on an advantageous situation on the banks of the Jumna, adjoining the city on one side, and on the other an esplanade before the fort glacis, planted with trees like that of Calcutta. It is a solid and stately building, but without much ornament. It had been, since the English conquest, fitted up first as a residence for the General of the station, then used as an assembly-room, till Mr. Courtney Smith, apprehending this to be an insult to the religious feelings of the Mussulmans, persuaded the Government to restore it to its sacred character, and to repair its damages. The Mussulmans, however, are neither numerous nor zealous in Allahabad, and seemed to care little about the matter. Nevertheless the original desecration was undoubtedly offensive and unjust, and the restitution a proper and popular measure.

The finest things in Allahabad, however, are Sultan Khosroo's serai and garden; the former is a noble quadrangle, with four fine Gothic gateways, surrounded within an embattled wall by a range of cloisters for the accommodation of travellers. The whole is now much dilapidated, but was about to be repaired from the town duties, when unhappily the Birmese war arrested this excellent appropriation of an unpopular tax. Adjoining the serai is a neglected garden, planted with fine old mangoetrees, in which are three beautiful tombs raised over two princes and a princess of the imperial family. Each consists of a large terrace, with vaulted apartments beneath it, in the central one of which is a tomb like a stone coffin, richly carved. Above is a very lofty circular apartment, covered by a dome richly painted within, and without carved yet more beautifully. All these are very solemn and striking, rich, but not florid or gaudy, and completely giving the lie to the notion common in England, which regards all eastern architecture as in bad taste and "barbarous."

The houses of the civil servants of the Company are at some distance, both from the fort and the town, extending along a small rising ground, in a line from the Ganges to the Jumna. They are mere bungalows, and less both in size and ornament than at any station I have yet seen in these provinces. The situation is, however, pleasant and healthy. The city of Allahabad is small, with very poor houses, and narrow irregular streets, and confined to the banks of the Jumna.