or rather to make him his prey. Gulam Kaudir fled, and took refuge in the fort of Agra. Sindia's troops besieged him there. Perceiving at last that he must be taken if he remained in the fort, he took advantage of a dark night, stuffed his saddle with a large quantity of precious stones, took a few followers, and fled from the fort towards Persia. Unluckily for him, he fell off his horse the second night after his flight, and by this means a party of horse, which had been sent in pursuit of him, came up and took him prisoner. He was brought to Sindia; who after exposing him for some time in irons, and some time in a cage, ordered his ears, nose, hands and feet to be cut off, and his eyes taken out, in which state he was allowed to expire.

No immediate object presenting to occupy the attention of Sir Charles Malet after his conferences with Mhadajeė Sindia and Shah Aalum, he adopted the plan of visiting Delhi, the ancient and far-famed capital of Hindostan; and having obtained the emperor's permission, and a party of horse from Mhadajee Sindia, the embassy proceeded thither on the 7th of June 1785, and reached it on the 10th.

The journey from Muttra to Delhi was not very interesting; the country entirely flat, with the Mewat hills in the distance, was no doubt fertile and pleasant in the flourishing state of the capital, but now, almost depopulated by famine, and the oppressions of the late changeable and rapacious occupants, it presented a melancholy aspect. In consequence of its uncultivated state, rats had multiplied in the fields in a most extraordinary manner, and wolves had become formidably numerous.

At the different stages on this road there are in general good

serais, and large towns and villages, mostly on eminences, which, as the country is entirely a plain, were most probably formed by the succession of buildings and ruins for ages past, on the same spot. The road is infested by tribes of banditti called googurs and mewatties; but a light escort of fifty cavalry was a sufficient protection from insult. The infantry and heavy baggage were left at the encampment near Muttra. The soil between Agra and Delhi is uniformly sandy, entirely covered with a wild shrub called conkra, bearing a flower resembling the ranunculus, succeeded by a pod, which opening when ripe, scatters abroad a kind of silky cotton, containing the seed, which overruns the country. The lactaceous juice of the whole plant is used externally by the natives, as a remedy against bruises and sprains. What is thought remarkable in this part of Hindostan, and would hardly be credited by an inhabitant of Guzerat, is, that the whole of this sandy plain, when in a state of culture, produced abundant crops of excellent wheat.

Handsome brick minarets of a considerable height, instead of stones, as in Europe, mark the distance from Agra to Delhi, many of them in very good repair; but the road having in course of time, and by the prostration of property, been much altered, they are in many places a great way from the present road. They seem to be regulated by the jereeby measurement, of twenty-five guz to one jereeb, and two hundred jereebs to one coss. rismi coss, which is the general rule of computing distance, falls considerably short of this measure. The distance from Sindia's encampment to Delhi is fifty-eight rismi coss; about eighty-sevenEnglish miles.

The

The ruins of serais, mosques, mausoleums, and other magnificent structures, commenced about three or four miles before the entrance of the present city. Amidst the melancholy heaps, the tomb of the emperor Humaioon, still in perfect preservation, stands conspicuous; the obelisk of Cutbal Deen is equally so, at a distance on the left. About a mile and a half from the gate of the new city of Shah Jehanabad is the old fort, standing in the midst of the ruins of the old city of Delhi; it is a most ponderous structure, and of great antiquity; but the excellence of its masonry, notwithstanding its being totally neglected, has in general withstood the ravages of time. From some circumstances, particularly the appearance of the only gate toward the river Jumna, it seems to have been originally visited by its stream, though the channel is now at least half a mile from it. The new city called Shah Jehan-abad, from its founder Shah Jehan, is about sixteen miles in circuit, and now occupies the space between the old city and the river, on whose bank it stands. Its citadel is the imperial palace; the streets are broad and level, mostly paved with brick, but the houses are low and mean. An aqueduct occupies the centre of the principal streets, built by the Ameer Ally Murdaen Khan, by which he brought water from Kurnal to Delhi, a distance of seventy miles; the greater part is now in ruins.

The amcers' palaces, though extremely spacious and elegantly disposed within, make no figure from without, being all excluded from observation by walls, and a dewry, or gateway, in which there is room for an ample guard; and over it for the nobut-konna, or band of music, which is one of the appendages of certain ranks

of nobility. It was usual for all the Mogul ameers to have mansions in the capital. Their magnitude in general, on account of their immense establishments, exceeded any of the palaces belonging to the nobility in Europe. Not only the palaces above mentioned, but in fact every habitable house is in Shah Jehan-abad. The old city of Delhi is an entire scene of desolation; not a human being to be seen in the ancient metropolis of this vast empire.

From Mr. Cruso's Journal.

I was driven for shelter from a shower into the old fort, which is still thinly peopled by herdsmen, gardeners, and labourers. On approaching the new city we passed several extensive gardens; but the owners not being able to afford gardeners, have built up the gate-ways, to prevent the entrance of cattle and destruction of the pleasure-houses; the walls being very high, we could not see the interior. At length we reached a garden belonging to an omrah still in power; this being open and well taken care of, I had the curiosity to alight, and was highly gratified with the view of a large square, laid out with some degree of taste in beds of flowers, surrounded by a number of dwarf pomegranate trees, bending under a weight of fruit of the largest size and richest colour. From thence we descended by many steps into another garden of similar dimensions, with an arched walk on one side shaded by grape-vines, entirely covered with large bunches of fruit in the most tempting profusion; but although now near the middle of June, they were still unripe; whereas when we left Surat two months before the grape season was over. This second square is thickly planted with fruit trees in great variety; among them a

number of peaches, the first I have seen in India, not yet rîpe; neither were the pempelnoos, or shadocks, which were equally abundant. Figs, which were nearly over at Surat, were still unripe at Delhi, so were the small oranges, (called at Bombay the Aurungabad oranges) which we have purchased at most of the principal towns since leaving Oojen. We have in this latitude one great advantage over the southern provinces of Hindostan, in a journey at this season, when the day breaks at four in the morning, and it is not dark until eight in the evening.

We entered the new city at the Delhi gate, leading to a long street of a miserable appearance, containing one very handsome musjid, with gilded domes; from thence we were conducted along one face of the fort, to the house, or rather palace allotted for our accommodation. It was a spacious edifice, or rather a multiplication of courts and edifices, built by Sufder Jung; still belonging to his descendant Asuph ul Dowlah, and lately occupied by his vackeel, the eunuch Lutafut, a man of great consequence at this period. Here we found convenient quarters for all our party, totally distinct from each other; also for our cattle and attendants..

In the evening, on taking a more complete view of this Mogul mansion, we were surprised to find the apartments just mentioned formed only a very small part of this immense pile, which occupies six squares, corresponding with that in which we immediately reside. Each of them comprising an elegant mansion, capable of accommodating, in a magnificent style, half a dozen numerous families, while the various ranges of inferior rooms, lodges, and out-offices of every description, were amply sufficient to cover, at