not having an idea of making their voices accord with each other. The dancing, though not equally barbarous, is exceedingly tiresome, when, as in the presence of ladies, it is circumscribed within the bounds of propriety; but there are some European gentlemen who acquire the native taste for an exhibition which, when addressed to male eyes alone, is said to be not particularly decorous.

The horror, with which even those Asiatics who adopt foreign fashions in equipages and house-furniture regard the manners and customs of the Europeans brought in close contact with them, is sometimes openly displayed by urgent remonstrances to those for whom they have contracted a friendship; but this is nothing, compared to the expression of their disgust in private. In Delhi, the opinions entertained upon the subject are widely, though secretly, circulated through the medium of the native ukhbars, scandalous chronicles, very much resembling a few of our English newspapers, except that they are in manuscript, the language is Persian, and the editors do not scruple to write at full length the names of those who are the subjects of the most atrocious libels. It is not very easy for a European to procure a sight of the animadversions passed upon the conduct of himself or his friends; some artifice is requisite to obtain samples of the method employed to amuse the reading portion of the native community at the expense of persons differing so widely in the habits of their public and private life. As the writers are not very scrupulous in the language they use, there is not a little difficulty in making an extract, which will display the spirit of their comments, without shocking the eye by coarseness of expression. The following description of a European entertainment will convey some idea of the estimation in which such promiscuous meetings are held. "The gentlemen of exalted dignity had a great feast last night, to which all the military chiefs and lieutenants were invited. There was a little hog on the table, before Mr. —, who cut it in small pieces, and sent some to each of the party; even the women ate of it. In their language, a pig is called ham. Having stuffed themselves with the unclean food, and many sorts of flesh, taking plenty of wine, they made for some time a great noise, which doubtless arose from drunkenness. They all stood up two or four times, crying hip! hip!' and roared before they drank more wine. After dinner, they danced in their licentious manner, pulling about each other's wives." Here follows a bit of personal scandal: "Captain who is staying with Mr. went away with the latter's lady (arm-in-arm), the palanquins following behind, and they proceeded by themselves into the bungalow the wittol remained at table, guzzling red wine." The uncourteous, ungracious manner, which too many Englishmen assume towards the natives, is touched off with truth and spirit in the following paragraph: "The Government has manifested singular want of sense in appointing Mr. at -. The man is a capacious blockhead, and very hot-tempered; he can do no business himself, yet he has the extreme folly to be angry when abler persons wish to do it for him. When the most respectable Hindoostance gentlemen waited Asiat. Jour.N.S.VOL.14.No.53.

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upon him yesterday, he just stood up, half-dressed, when they salaamed, and said, well, what do you want?' And when they answered 'only to pay our respects,' he growled out 'jow' (go)." This sort of rudeness is, indeed, but too common, and seems to excite the native ire as much as dancing, wine-bibbing, and eating the flesh of pigs. Even the highest person in the state is not exempt from the lampoons of these purveyors of scandal, as the following extract will attest: "The European king and his viziers, having heard that the governor-general is a fool, exceedingly slack in managing affairs, he is to be recalled, and a clever lord sent out to save Bengal."

Native opinion is held in great scorn, and set at defiance, by the European residents of India, who, with the solitary exception of a few, refusing to eat pork, out of deference to the prevailing prejudice, indulge themselves in every thing that appears to be most hateful to the surrounding multitude. But the excesses of which they are guilty would be excused, or overlooked, were they more anxious to make themselves popular by affability and kindness of demeanour. In India, public admiration is not an evanescent feeling, or liable to the mutations which attend it in Europe. The people of Hindoostan have no caprice in their affections, nor do they forget the benefits they have received. Instances have been known at Delhi of natives flocking to condole with a resident on his disgrace by the British Government, notwithstanding their hopes and expectations from his favour were at an end. And yet many persons, who have never for a single instant endeavoured to conciliate the people over whom they have been placed in authority, with power to render them happy, by accepting their services or courtesies with corresponding kindness, are loud in their invectives against native insincerity and ingratitude. It is precisely those, whose pride and insolence have rendered them objects of dislike, who thus animadvert upon the character of the people of Hindoostan.

Delhi is considered to be one of the hottest places in India, owing, probably to the arid nature of the country all around it, the immense quantity of buildings, which become so many reflectors, and the exceeding fury of the fiery simoom, which blows until ten o'clock at night, and sometimes does not subside during the twenty-four hours. This kind of weather lasts four months, and European residents must content themselves with in-door amusements the whole period of its duration. The rains and the cold season are both very agreeable; but there is one plague from which the city and its environs never are exempt, that of flies, which come in armies similar to those which invaded Egypt in the time of Pharoah. In addition to the usual number of chicks, the blinds with which the doors and windows of English houses are furnished, the outer verandahs are carefully closed in with this pretty and useful manufacture of split bamboo, to secure the interiors from the hosts of winged enemies which would otherwise pervade the whole atmosphere. Persons living in tents, in the cold weather, are almost driven mad by the torments inflicted by these disgusting assailants. The natives wrap themselves up in a cloth, and lie down, preferring the chances

of suffocation, as the smallest evil of the two; but the European must either submit to the constant attendance of a domestic, with a chowrie, to beat them off, or arm himself with patience to endure.

These, however, and other inflictions of the climate, are amply compensated by the endless gratification afforded to intellectual minds by the number of interesting objects which greet the spectator on every side. A life might be spent in rambling over the ruins of old Delhi, and subjects for contemplation still remain. Next to the palace, the most striking building of Shahjehanabad is the Jumma Musjid, a magnificent mosque, erected on the summit of a rock of considerable height, ascended by three fine flights of steps. Three handsome gateways lead into a quadrangle of the noblest dimensions, paved with granite, inlaid with marble, and surrounded on three sides with an open cloister. Along this splendid area, which has a marble tank or reservoir of water in the centre, the visitor is conducted to another flight of steps, the ascent to the mosque, a superb hall, flanked with minarets, and entered by three lofty Gothic arches crowned with marble domes. From the interstices of the piazza of this fine square, very picturesque views are obtained; it has not the delicacy of finish of the pearl mosque at Agra, but its proportions are much finer, and its situation, upon so commanding an eminence, gives it a great advantage over other celebrated Moghul temples. The Jumina Musjid was the work of Aurungzebe, who, like many other usurpers, endeavoured to gain a reputation for piety; and the better to impose upon a credulous multitude, who might have attributed his desire to gain the throne, by the imprisonment of his father and the murder of his brothers, to ambitious motives, clothed himself in the rags of a faqueer, and in this humble guise sought the shrine of the Jumma Musjid, to pray for the success of his rebellious army. This mosque is kept in good repair by a grant of the English Government; it is much frequented by the faithful, of whom many hundreds may be seen at a time, prostrate on the pavement. It is also the resort of numerous beggars, and the poorer classes of travellers, who find all the shelter which the climate renders necessary in the nooks and recesses of the building. There are other mosques which, from their antiquity or the historical circumstances connected with them, excite a good deal of curiosity; and the new suburb, called, after its projector, Trevelyanpore, under the village of Paharee, built to supply habitations for the increasing population of the city, is sufficiently interesting to attract a visit from strangers. The plan has been much approved for its elegant simplicity, though of course there are divers opinions concerning it. The centre, a large quadrangle, called Bentinck Square, is entered by four streets, opening from the middle of each side, and not at the angles, according to the usual European custom. The whole extent of the streets, which are ninety feet in width, and the façade of the square, present an unbroken front of Doric columns, supporting a piazza behind, in which are commodious shops and dwelling houses, ranged with great regularity. The four triangular spaces at the back, formed by the arms of the cross, are intended for stable and court-yards for the cattle and bullock-carts belonging to the inhabitants.

In the event of Trevelyanpore becoming a place of native resort, a plan for increasing its extent has been laid down, and a native gentleman of great wealth is constructing a magnificent gateway, of corresponding architecture, fronting the Lahore gate of Delhi, which will lead to a circus, the centre of which is to be adorned with a cenotaph to the memory of a young British officer, a friend of Mr. Trevelyan, the founder of this new quarter, which has not yet, however, been much sought after as a residence by the native population.

The grand object of attraction, in the neighbourhood of Shahjehanabad, is the Kootub Minar, a magnificent tower, 242 feet in height, which rises in the midst of the ruins of old Delhi, at the distance of nine miles south of the modern city. It is not known by whom or for what purpose this splendid monument was erected; and conjecture, weary of a hopeless task, is now content to permit its origin to remain in obscurity. According to the general supposition, it was erected in the thirteenth century; but this is not certain, nor can it be ascertained whether the founder was Moslem or Hindoo, though the majority of opinions inclines to the latter. The great architectural beauty of this wonderful building, the height of the column, supposed to exceed that of any other in the world, its amazing strength, the richness of the materials, and the magnificence and variety of its embellishments, combine to render it the surpassing wonder of a land abounding in buildings of the highest degree of splendour and interest. The extraordinary elegance and grandeur of this remarkable tower have preserved it from the ruin with which it has been lately threatened; the Government, anxious to preserve so valuable a relic of Indian antiquity, directed its res toration and repair,-a difficult and somewhat hazardous work, which has been admirably performed by Major Smith, of the engineers. From the summit, which is ascended by a spiral staircase, the view is of the most sublime description; a desert, covered with ruins full of awful beauty, surrounds it on all sides, watered by the snake-like Jumna, which winds its huge silvery folds along the crumbling remains of palaces and tombs. In the back-ground, rises the dark lofty walls and frowning towers of an ancient fortress, the stronghold of the Pytaun chiefs; and the eye, wandering over the stupendous and still beautiful fragments of former grandeur, rests at last upon the white and glittering mosques and minarets of the modern city, closing-in the distance, and finely contrasting, by its luxuriant groves and richly flowering gardens, with the loneliness and desolation of the scene beneath. The tomb of the emperor Humayoon, the father of Acbar, a monarch pre-eminent in misfortune, but of whom some fine chivalric tales are told, stands at a short distance from the Kootub Minar; there are other mausoleums also of great beauty and splendour, amid which that of Sufter Jung, a fortunate military adventurer, is worthy of mention. Another place of great interest in the neighbourhood is a gigantic astronomical observatory, supposed to be the work of Jey Sing, a Hindoo rajah, who flourished in the seventeenth century. The dial is still in good repair, a stupendous work, of which the gnomon, of solid masonry, is sixty feet

high. It is not possible to convey any idea by description of these enormous instruments, but persons desirous to make themselves acquainted with them have only to consult the splendid and accurate views taken by Mr. Daniell. The Pytaun fortress, which forms so conspicuous an object from every terrace in the neighbourhood, constitutes another of the lions of old Delhi; the lapse of seven hundred years has done little towards the reduction of the solid walls and massive towers of this fine old place, which is now chiefly celebrated for its tank or bowlee, embosomed within high picturesque buildings, which rise from twenty to sixty feet above the surface of the water,—a place of delightful coolness in the hot season, the sun not shining upon it for more than three hours a-day. It is deep as well as dark, and in the cold weather immersion cannot be very agreeable; yet the idle parties of young men, who frequent the spot, take perhaps greater delight in the exploits of a few poor creatures, who pick up a precarious subsistence by plunging into the flashing waters, than in more legitimate objects of interest. Some of these will venture, for the sake of a rupee, from a very perilous height, springing from the dome of a neighbouring mosque down to the abyss below, sixty or seventy feet, and disappearing frightfully, the waters resuming their tranquillity before these desperate adventurers can rise again to the surface. Of course, amongst Europeans, there will always be persons sufficiently inhuman to encourage these barbarous feats; the few intellectual pilgrims, who wander amidst the wrecks of by-gone splendour, must make up their minds to endure sights and scenes of the most incongruous nature:-pic-nic parties bivouacking in the tombs, and being entertained at their repasts by the performances of a set of nautch girls; young men amusing themselves with a game of quoits; and groups of flirting unimaginative women, speculating on the probabilities of getting up a quadrille.

WEDDING AMUSEMENTS OF THE JÁTS OF Bhurtpore.

MR. J. S. LUSHINGTON, who was present at the marriage of the present raja of Bhurtpore, in 1832, relates the following among the amusements of the bride and bridegroom, after the ceremony:—

"One is the untying of the kankan, or bracelet of kúsa grass, which, previous to the marriage, is bound on the right hand of the bride and left of the bridegroom. Being seated opposite each other, they proceed to unravel the knots and mazes of their respective kankans. Should the husband succeed in undoing his wife's bracelet before she has untied his, the feat is considered typical of his future superiority in domestic life, and great rejoicings are immediately made by his relations; if, on the other hand, the lady should first unravel the bracelet, her friends celebrate her dexte rity in noisy and triumphant songs. A curious game of chance also takes place between the newly-married couple. A large tub or cauldron of water is placed before them, and jewels, gold mohurs, and rupees are thrown into it. The bride and bridegroom plunge their hands into the basin, and whoever succeeds in extracting the largest quantity of jewels or money, at one dip, wins the game."