pointments splendid, but he was accompanied by half a dozen servants, beside the mahoot who sat a-straddle on his neck, and directed his movements, enforcing his commands by pricks with a sharp iron hook. One man walked beside the elephant's head and talked to him constantly, recommending him to take care of stones, holes in the road, &c. In the seat of the howdah behind me sat the servant whom Captain Hayes had sent in my company. He held over my head a gigantic scarlet chattah or umbrella. I did not particularly like elephant-riding, the paces are not comfortable until you are used to them. You are thrown first to the right and then to the left-occasionally the motion is backward and forward-but you cannot keep still for an instant, and I found my sides sore for several days afterwards, from violent contact with the howdah. Altogether it reminded me uncomfortably of riding on a slow trotting horse-you cannot help imagining that if he would go faster he would be easier, and yet if you succeed in increasing the pace, your sufferings are probably aggravated.

Wherever I went, the elephant and retinue attracted the greatest attention and respect. Horsemen faced round and saluted, some of them even dismounting and making saláms. The sentries all presented arms, and at one or two points they even turned out the guards. All that I could do was to make a military salute in acknowledgement, try to look as dignified as possible, and convey the impression that it was all my due, and something to which I was quite accustomed.

The streets were full of people, as it was a great Hindoo festival, and presented a most interesting sight- The dress in Lucknow is much more picturesque, and gave the impression of more wealth, or, at least, more luxury than the costumes which I had seen further down the country. Many of the men had shawls, some of them very beautiful and costly, worn as kummurbunds (sashes), or pugrees (turbans), or else thrown loosely over the shoulders. The great mass of the people, however, as elsewhere, wore little clothing, and that of the coarsest yellow cotton.

We met numbers of the chokeedárs, or native police, who

are so obnoxious to the people, and whose extortions, and abuse of power, are so difficult to control. They were dressed in the native fashion, wearing a blue cloth cassock with tight trowsers, and were armed with shields and spears. These weapons were necessary, as a very large proportion of the people in the streets carried swords, and sometimes shields also.

I noticed among the crowds a good many fukheers, or religious mendicants, who answer to the durweeshes of Persia. They generally wear little clothing, and are daubed over with white streaks or mud. One of them was entirely naked, his hair dressed with feathers, and covered from head to foot with a yellow powder. I thought he must be cool in this costume, but learned afterwards that it was a common dodge with the fukheers to rub this powder into the skin, as it occasions a slight cuticular irritation, and thus yields an artificial warmth.

Crossing the bridge again, and keeping down on the other side through a street parallel with the river, we arrived in a short time at a large gateway leading to the Furad Buksh, the palace occupied by the late king. It consists of a succession of courts, connected by gateways, and each surrounded by rows of two-storied buildings, in a plain, Saracenic style. The palace extends to the river, on the banks of which are three larger and more lofty buildings, surmounted by gilt domes. The courts behind these buildings were of considerable size, and laid out in the Italian style of gardening, with fish ponds, and marble copies of antique Grecian statues. The whole establishment covers many acres of ground. We passed through the stables, the courts for servants, those of the zenana, and many others, the former use of which I did not ascertain, and at length arrived in the garden court fronting that portion of the palace, used by the king for the reception of visi tors. This building is four or five stories high. The lower story consists principally of a large room, open toward the court, and surrounded by several smaller apartments, used as breakfast-rooms, or for similar purposes-all furnished in English style. A billiard room, with an old table, occupied

the side toward the Goomtee. I found three or four young officers quartered here and in the adjacent apartments. One of them had taken the billiard table for a bedstead, and a terrier dog was quietly sleeping on a tall gilt throne of Oriental shape.

We ascended to the roof, which, though not very high, commands a good view of the city. The houses are generally very low. I was surprised at the great space of ground covered by the Furad Buksh, and at the extraordinary number of palaces in sight. The king alone had five palaces at Lucknow, besides sumptuous country seats in the vicinity; and the great men of the court owned magnificent residences, many of which rival the Furad Buksh in size. Like the royal palaces, these edifices were closed and inaccessible to visitors, their owners having withdrawn to the country after the dethronement of the king, and dissolution of the court in the previous February.

None of the rooms which I saw in the palace were large, but they must have been handsome when the frescoes and gilding were fresh. At best, however, they never could have been so elegant as the rooms of very many private houses in New York-the decoration was often tawdry and in bad taste, and always perishable, as nothing but stone retains any freshness in the Indian climate. The weather, hot and rainy onethird of the year, and hot without rain for most of the remainder, makes all stuccoed buildings look shabby in a short time; and when it is remembered that such is the material of nearly all edifices in Lucknow, and that no repairs are made to them, it is easy to understand why it has been necessary for the kings to build one palace after another. Another reason for building so many palaces was the desire of each monarch to signalize his reign by constructing for himself a residence more splendid than those of his predecessors. This foolish wish each successive king carried out with that recklessness which is so characteristic of Oriental sovereigns in the gratification of every whim.

Mounting the elephant, and passing again through the deserted courts of the palace, I left the Furad Buksh, and passed

through the bazár and chôk. The streets were again crowded with people, and were so narrow that the foot passengers often found it difficult to get out of the elephant's way. As I sat in the howdah, I was on a level with the upper story of the houses, and could look in upon the apartments. In the principal bazár these were mostly tenanted by young girls, dressed in fine sarees of green or red muslins, decorated with gold nose-rings and jewellery, their eyes darkened with kohl (antimony), and their hands tinged red with heena. These ladies are called in Hindoostanee khusbees, or more politely, lallbeebees (red-ladies). Not to be less polite than the natives themselves to those who are in India, as they were in Greece, the only well-educated class of women, we will call them bayadères, though it is a word which I never heard in India. The bayadères then sat at the windows, smoking their naichas, displaying their finest clothes and jewellery, and sometimes making remarks to me in Hindoostanee or English.

"Ite quibus grata est picta lupa barbara mitra."

Sometimes might be seen beings still more repulsive-men with their pale faces, long, oily locks, decorated like their female correlatives, and gazing out of the windows with spiritless leering eyes:

"Hispo subit juvenes et morbo pallet utroque.
Talia secreta coluerunt orgia tæda

Cecropiam soliti Baptæ lassare Cotytto.
Ille supercilium madida fuligine tactum
Obliqua producit acu pingitque trementes
Attollens oculos; vitreo bibit ille Priapo

Reticulumque comis auratum ingentibus implet,
Cærulea indutus scutulata aut galbina rasa."

The city of Lucknow is spread over a large space of ground, but the best streets are all near the palace and Imambara, so that it did not take me long to see them all, particularly as was on an elephant: in fact, there was such a crowd that, in any other conveyance, progress would have been almost im possible. Once or twice we met with other elephants, and

then as the streets were too narrow for the elephants to pass or turn round, the other always had to retreat backward before ours, till he came to a cross-street.

After taking another view of the Imambara and Room-eeDurwázu, we again passed the bridge to return to the bungalow. As we reached the opposite shore of the river, I turned round and took my last view of Lucknow. It seemed to me even more beautiful by the slanting rays of the evening sun than when I had seen it before, shining as if made of silver in the full blaze of an Indian noon. That evening I read Bayard Taylor's description of Lucknow, and the expressions of his feeling on seeing for the last time that magnificent home of vice and crime, represented my own feelings so well that I cannot forbear quoting the words: "The sun is setting, and the noises of the great city are subdued for a moment. The deep-green gardens lie in shadow, but all around us, far and near, the gilded domes are blazing in the yellow glow. The scene is lovely as the outer gate of Paradise, yet what deception, what crime, what unutterable moral degradation fester beneath its surface!"

In truth, every native capital in India is a nursery of the darkest crimes, a hot bed of the most disgusting forms of licentiousness ever invented by the depraved passions of man. Should the doom of Sodom descend upon these cities, no one who knows what they are would dispute the terrible justice of the punishment.

I again dined at Captain Hayes', who gave me much advice during the evening as to my further progress, and furnished me with letters to his friends in the stations whither I was going. Late in the evening I bade adieu, with regret, to my kind entertainer and his wife, for whom I had formed sentiments of sincere respect and esteem.

The subsequent fate of Captain Hayes was sad. He took command of a regiment of irregular cavalry, a service for which he was eminently adapted by his intimate acquaintance with the natives and their language; and fell, among the first victims of the mutiny, treacherously shot from behind, by one of his trusted followers.