crowded behind them, give the city, to my eye, a very pleasing appearance. On these terraces, and in these verandahs, you may see the respectable-looking owners in their Moorish dresses, smoking their hookahs, playing chess, or walking sedately in small parties. In the evenings, several of them go upon the water, in boats kept for pleasure, called snake-boats, from their length and their quick darting motion. They are very narrow, and have large crews, who use short, broad paddles, with which they strike the water in a quick-measured cadence, which tells loudly as it falls on the boat's gunwale. Here the owners are seated on cloths or carpets, with, or often without awnings ; have their hookahs and sherbet; a musician or two, or a story-teller; and the crews too sing accustomed airs with a wild chorus, led by their coxswain, who stands at the very stern, in a bold, graceful attitude, as their boat darts on the bosom of the stream with fearful velocity.

"I walked to look at the Mootie Jeel, or pearl lake,* on which once stood the superb palace of pleasure, built in the day of his pride by Aliverdy Khan. The gateway by which you enter the grounds, is half decayed, and would doubtless have disappeared altogether, but for a mosque within, venerated, handsome, and of fine stone, which the zealous frequenters contrive with ingenious tastefulness to conceal with thick layers of white-wash. What were the gardens, are now naked fields. On the further sides of the lake, which surrounds with two broad arms this peninsulated spot, there is a fringe of wood. Of the palace which stood close to the water, at the extreme point of the

gardens, there is only one fragment, but it is a noble

The Mooty Jeel is one of the windings of a former channel of the Cossimbazar river.

one, and a fitting memorial of it, being a ruin of four arches supported by five columns, the whole of the most beautiful black polished marble, taken from an ancient and princely edifice among the ruins of ancient Gour, to adorn, survive, and be the only memorials of a second. While I stood near them, ten or eleven elephants, belonging to the present Nawab, were brought down by their keepers, to water in the lake just opposite. They looked in poor condition, but yet stepped with that slow air of pride, which spoke of other days, and seemed in character with the scene. At night, there was a good deal of noise and rejoicing in different quarters of the town, it being a festival with the Hindoos. Though Moorshedabad is a Mahometan city, still, the idle of all sects join in a festival. Even my poor boatmen, who were all Moors, had donned their holiday scull-caps, trimmed with copper-lace, changed their loin-cloths, and hurried off to some childish puppet-show or cheap debauch.

In

"In the morning, I walked into the city, and took my stand in an irregular-shaped open space, from which branch out five streets with gateways. this place are the great mosque, Nobut Khana, old hall for durbar, and one or two other public buildings. Hither had some of my countrymen, after the sad affair of the Black Hole, been dragged in chains; here had they made the low salaam, spoken the usual benediction, and petitioned for their lives and liberties, from a Nawab of Moorshedabad; and a twelvemonth after that period, Clive had entered it, a conqueror, and from the head of a small firm band of Europeans, had looked round upon the multitudes who crowded with astonishment to gaze on them, with a half anxious and doubtful joy as to the fulness of his success. Here and there, a glance of the dark eye and the haughtily

smoothed moustachio, conveyed to me the smothered curse of some descendants from the nobles of that day, as they passed near me.'

Moorshedabad was originally called Muksoodabad; but, in 1704, when Moorshed Kooly Khan (Jaffier) transferred the seat of government to this place, he gave it its present name. The city extends about eight miles along the river. It is reputed very unhealthy, owing to the neglected state of the sewers, the closeness and narrowness of the streets, and the thick jungle intermixed with the huts and houses, which is yearly increasing, and threatens to absorb the whole. In 1813, the canal was opened between the Bhagirathi and the Puddah, which, independently of the commercial benefits derived from it, was supposed to have improved the salubrity of the air, the unwholesomeness being ascribed to the stagnation of the waters of the Bhagirathi during the dry season. In 1814, however, disease raged here with peculiar virulence; and the decay of the city tends to increase the evil. In 1801, the inhabitants of the Moorshedabad district were estimated at 1,020,752, in the proportion of one Mohammedan to two Hindoos; and the city was supposed to contain about 35,000 souls.+ Since then, the population has been on the decline.

Sketches of India, pp. 138-142.

† Hamilton, vol. i. p. 161. The authority is not given. According to the returns made to the Governor-General's inquiries, in 1801-2, Moorshedabad city contained only 35,000 souls; the district, 650,000; total 685,000. The population of the whole Moorshedabad division, including Rajshahy, Baugulpoor, Dinajepoor, Purneah, and Rungpoor, is stated at 5,995,340. See Brewster's Encyclopædia, art. India. The uncertainty of these estimates may be judged of from the circumstance, that Rungpoor, to which is assigned a population of a million, is computed by Dr. F. Buchanan to contain no fewer than 2,735,000 souls, of whom above half are Moslems. See Hamilton, vol. ii. p. 207.

Moorshedabad is about 120 miles above Calcutta, in lat. 24° 11' N.; long. 88° 15′ E.

The neighbourhood of this city is the chief seat of the manufacture of taffetas and other silks. The largest establishment of the Company's is at Jungy. poor, distant seventeen miles N. by W. * Another station is at Mauldah, in the Dinajepoor district, above seventy miles N. of Moorshedabad; situated on the Mahananda, which divides it from the district of Purneah. This town contains, independently of the suburb of Nawab-gunje, about 3000 houses, of which seven-eighths are said to be built with brick and stones from the ruins of Gour, a few miles to the south. For a picturesque description of the site of this celebrated capital, we again avail ourselves of the florid page of the last-cited amusing writer.

GOUR.

"FROM the Cossimbuzar river-head, you launch forth into a channel nearly four miles in width, with waters rough and rising into waves....I sailed across it to the left bank, and moored in the narrow little creek at Pookarya. Hence, in the morning, I proceeded up a small stream, communicating at that season with the site of ancient Gour, and moored for two days there.

"Seven hundred and thirty years before Christ, Gour was the capital of Bengal, or Gaura, as the country was then called.+ The extent of its ruins is

The first attempt at establishing a silk-manufactory was at Budge-budge, in 1773, which did not succeed. That at Jungy poor employed, in 1802, about 3000 people. The other stations were Cossimbazar, Mauldah, Bauleah, Commercolly, Radnagore, and Rungpore.-Valentia, vol. i. p. 51.

† According to Dow. It is supposed to be the Gangia regia of

nearly fifteen miles in length by three in breadth; or rather, I should say, the extent of that space on which ruins may yet be discovered, and the whole of which was once covered with buildings and crowded with inhabitants. But where, you ask, are these ruins ? as, toiling through bush and long grass, now crossing a field which some ryot has farmed, now wading through pools of water, or ferrying across them, you make your way from point to point, and find only the ruins of seven or eight mosques, the half-broken-down walls of a large Moorish fortress, and two strikingly grand and lofty gates of a citadel, evidently built by MaPtolemy. It was repaired and beautified by Akbar, A.D. 1575, who gave it the name of Jennutabad, under which name it is thus mentioned by Abul Fazel. "Jennutabad is a very ancient city, and was once the capital of Bengal. Formerly it was called Lucknowty (Lukshma-vutee), and sometimes Gour. The name it now bears, was given by the late emperor. Here is a fine fort, to the eastward of which is a large lake called Chutteah-puttea, in which are many islands. If the dams break during the heavy periodical rains, the city is laid under water. To the northward of this fort, at the distance of a coss, is a large building of great antiquity, where there is a reservoir of water, called Peazbarry, which is of very noxious property. It was usual, when a criminal was capitally condemned, to confine him in this building, where, being allowed no other drink than this water, he expired in a very short time. But his majesty has ordered this punishment to be discontinued." Ayeen Akberry, vol. ii. p. 8. According to Ferishta, the unwholesomeness of the air occasioned the desertion of Gour, on which the seat of government was removed to Tânda or Tanra, a few miles higher up the river. This was in the reign of Solimaun Shah, of the Shere dynasty, A.D. 1564. Major Rennell was told by the natives, that it was deserted in consequence of a pestilence. The origin of the decline of Gour, however, was the change in the course of the Ganges, which formerly washed its walls. Two hundred years ago, the river, which had been gradually changing its bed, totally quitted the old channel for that which it at present occupies; and the governors of Bahar and Bengal deserted it for other residencies. No part of the ancient site of Gour is nearer to the present bed of the Ganges, than four miles and a half; and some parts, originally washed by it, are now twelve miles distant.