Population more Hindoo than Mussulman. 431

James the First to Jehangeer (probably suggested by Fitch's account) was an English coach. But within a short period after the present had been made, the ambassador was struck to see that several others had been constructed, very superior in materials, and fully equal in workmanship.' But this emulation died away without producing a permanent improvement in the coachbuilding of the country. Up to this day, the ekkas continue to run in the streets of Agra. Riding is in general fashion through all Hindoostan, as driving is now the rage in Calcutta. No decent public conveyances are available for strangers at Agra.

Though properly a Mahomedan city, the population here is more Hindoo than Mussulman. 'It is a singular fact,' says a writer, 'illustrating the forbearance of the Moguls, and the stability of the Hindoo village communities, that around Agra, though the seat of a Moslem government, hardly any instance occurs of a Mussulman claiming hereditary property in the soil, while many Hindoos can show that their ancestors occupied the villages for twenty centuries.' The Mussulman population is gradually wearing out in all the cities of Hindoostan. There is no longer the tide of Tartar or Persian emigration to seek fortune in India, and recruit the numbers of their nation. Like most men of broken-down fortunes, the Indian Mahomedan is now wrapt in the contemplation of his past antecedents. But he looks back with a sterile regret on the ages which can never return to him again. He has been lamed for all his days to come, and no more

can he be up and doing. Alien he has always been, and he is now moreover a nonentity. The Hindoo community at Agra is formed of all classes of the nation - Mahrattas, Marwarees, Doabees, Cashmarees, and Bengalees. The Marwaree abounds in the largest number. Confined for ages to a sandy tract, and cut off from intercourse with the rest of his nation, the mildness and moderation of the English government have tempted him out from the retreats in which he struggled for food, and was kept behind in wealth and civilization. In perseverance, in shrewdness, in selfdenial, in most of the qualities which conduce to success in life, the Marwaree has seldom been surpassed. He is now often engaged in speculations, by which he is distinguished as the most commercial of all the Indians. Agra is the nearest outlet to his abode, by which he can conveniently pour himself into Hindoostan. Physical causes influencing his condition, have given to the Marwaree almost a different ethnological variety. His barren soil and the scarcity of his food are stamped upon his spare form, his fleshless muscles, and his sharp-contracted features. The poverty of his country is also bespoken by the scanty clothing upon his body. He is the only Indian who is politically a Hindoo, and who still wears the dhooty, and scarf, and ear-rings of his

ancestors.

Of

The present commercial quarter of Agra is on the right of the bridge of boats as you enter the town. trade, deserving the name, there is little in Agra. The arts are also in a state of decay from the activity in

Trade and Manufactures at Agra.

433

which they had been seen by Sir Thomas Roe. Carpetmaking is observed in many of the shops. The produce of these far-away districts can never compete with the produce grown near the ports of shipment. The ancient wealth of the city is still helping the inhabitants, as are also the emoluments of the various offices under the present régime. But the position of Agra makes it the most eligible outlet and inlet for the traffic of Rajpootana; and when the Rail shall have removed the disabilities under which its trade labours, and goods shall from the sea in twice the time that the earth travels round its axis, the place will rapidly advance in wealth and prosperity.

come up

Of course this month of October is not exactly the time to enable a man to judge of those great summer heats which led Shah Jehan to remove the capital from Agra to Delhi. The furnace-blasts of the loo are felt in the midsummer months. But greater than the heat is the execrableness of the water at Agra. It is almost undrinkable, next to sea-water. Coming on the way, we found on this side of Cawnpore the water of all the wells more and more brackish, till at last it had reached the nauseating point at Agra. This is on account of the nitre in the soil. The Jumna water tastes sweet enough. But the up-country wallahs are all prejudiced against stream-water. The Hindoostanee Durwans in Calcutta invariably prefer the well-water to the holy Gunga water. Perhaps, in a past scientific age, the Hindoo philosophers had made an analysis similar to that of the modern chemists, who pronounce the saline

contamination to be harmless. But whether it be from the dictum of science or experience, the people of Hindoostan have a notable nicety of discrimination of good from bad water. The first question in the mouth of a travelling Hindoostanee is 'Hawa panee kesa hye'-how are the air and water? But the wells which yield brackish water are considered to be much more valuable for irrigation than those which yield sweet water. Ice is collected here in the cold weather, and can nowhere be so great a luxury as in a place where the heat often gives the ophthalmia and apoplexy.

Oil-rubbing, as with the Bengalees, is also not in fashion among the Hindoostanees. Probably, they do not want the stimulative ointment which is a necessary protective against the damp of Bengal. But the Bengalees living here testify to its soothing effect in a climate where the dry hot air tells with a caustic influence on the skin. Nor have the up-country wallahs any inoculation, much less vaccination, among them— though they are not without the Sitlee in the category of their goddesses. Nothing is more common to see in the North-West than handsome faces fearfully pockmarked. To have a pitted face matters little to a man -though to a Mussulman, with his shaggy beard, it fails not to give the truculence of a villain. But to exhibit an unconcern about its effects in the case of the other sex is a positive and unpardonable cruelty towards the famed Hindoostanee women and fair Rajputnees, who are thus most unfairly subjected to mourn themselves as underrated in the market of beauty, and to rue looking

The Agra College.

435

at themselves in a mirror, just as anybody is disgusted at the horrible porosity of his frame seen through a microscope.

The cantonments are two, and the civil station is six miles from the river. The Agra College, built in a Gothic style, stands in a fine quadrangle. Once on a time, Tom Corryat studied the Persian and Oordoo at Agra, and the Jesuits addressed the Great Mogul in his own language. Now, the Agra wallahs are eager to learn the language of Tom Corryat's countrymen. Akber encouraged schools, at which Hindoo as well as Mahomedan learning was taught, and every one was educated according to his circumstances and particular views in life.' But there is no comparison between the qualities of instruction then and at present imparted, and no distinction is now made between the boy of a farmer and the boy of a zemindar, on the common ground of an educational institution.

These also are not the days when a man is first whipped and next made to kiss the rod,—or sent to be sold in China, for breaking a China porcelain. No woman is now buried alive for kissing an eunuch,—nor any man ordered to be trampled upon by elephants in the streets, for refusing to give up his beautiful wife to the Lieutenant-Governor. No molten lead is now poured down a man's throat for speaking treason, and no man's property is now appropriated by a royal caprice, or released from confiscation by a well-timed jest. Far from all such, the humblest individual now freely speaks out his opinion. Judicial awards are given upon