towards Hindustan, but none higher up than this hill. The inhabitants used formerly to keep hogs, but in my time they have renounced the practice." His account of the productions of his paternal kingdom of Ferghana is still more minute -telling us even the number of apple-trees in a particular district, and making mention of an excellent way of drying apricots, with almonds put in instead of the stones; and of a wood with a fine red bark, of admirable use for making whip-handles and birds' cages! The most remarkable piece of statistics, however, with which he has furnished us, is in his account of Hindustân, which he first entered as a conqueror in 1525. It here occupies twenty-five closely-printed quarto pages; and contains, not only an exact account of its boundaries, population, resources, revenues, and divisions, but a full enumeration of all its useful fruits, trees, birds, beasts, and fishes; with such a minute description of their several habitudes and peculiarities, as would make no contemptible figure in a modern work of natural history-carefully distinguishing the facts which rest on his own observation from those which he gives only on the testimony of others, and making many suggestions as to the means of improving, or transferring them from one region to another. From the detailed botanical and zoological descriptions, we can afford of course to make no extracts. What follows is more general:

standing water is to be met with. All these cities and countries derive their water from wells or tanks, in which it is collected during the rainy season. In Hindustan, the populousness and decay, or tota destruction of villages, nay of cities, is almost in stantaneous. Large cities that have been inhabited for a series of years, (if, on an alarm, the inhabitants take to flight,) in a single day, or a day and a half, are so completely abandoned, that you can scarcely discover a trace or mark of population.'

The prejudices of the more active and energetic inhabitant of the hill country are still more visible in the following passage:

"Hindustan is a country that has few pleasures to recommend it. The people are not handsome. They have no idea of the charms of friendly society, They have no genius, no comprehension of mind, of frankly mixing together, or of familiar intercourse. no politeness of manner, no kindness or fellowfeeling, no ingenuity or mechanical invention in planning or executing their handicraft works, no skill or knowledge in design or architecture; they have no good horses, no good flesh, no grapes or musk-melonst, no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazars, no baths or colleges, no candles, no torches, not a candlestick." The chief excellency of Hindustân is, that it is a large country, and has abundance of gold and silver. The climate during the rains is very pleasant. On some days it rains ten, fifteen, and even twenty pouring down all at once, and form rivers, even in times. During the rainy season, inundations come places where, at other times, there is no water. While the rains continue on the ground, the air is singularly delightful-insomuch, that nothing can surpass its soft and agreeable temperature. Its defect is, that the air is rather moist and damp. "Hindustan is situated in the first, second, and During the rainy season, you cannot shoot, even third climates. No part of it is in the fourth. It is with the bow of our country, and it becomes quite a remarkably fine country. It is quite a different useless. Nor is it the bow alone that becomes world, compared with our countries. Its hills and useless; the coats of mail, books, clothes, and furrivers, its forests and plains, its animals and plants, niture, all feel the bad effects of the moisture. its inhabitants and their languages, its winds and Their houses, too, suffer from not being substan. rains, are all of a different nature. Although the tially built. There is pleasant enough weather in Germsîls (or hot districts), in the territory of Kabul, the winter and summer, as well as in the rainy bear, in many respects, some resemblance to Hin-season; but then the north wind always blows, and dustân, while in other particulars they differ, yet you have no sooner passed the river Sind than the country, the trees, the stones, the wandering tribes, the manners and customs of the people, are all entirely those of Hindustân. The northern range of hills has been mentioned. Immediately on crossing the river Sind, we come upon several countries in this range of mountains, connected with Kashmir, such as Pekheli and Shemeng. Most of them, though now independent of Kashmîr, were formerly included in its territories. After leaving Kashmir, these hills contain innumerable tribes and states, Pergannahs and countries, and extend all the way to Bengal and the shores of the Great Ocean. About these hills are other tribes of men."

"The country and towns of Hindustân are extremely ugly. All its towns and lands have an uniform look; its gardens have no walls; the greater part of it is a level plain. The banks of its rivers and streams, in consequence of the rushing of the torrents that descend during the rainy season, are worn deep into the channel, which makes it generally difficult and troublesome to cross them. In many places the plain is covered by a thorny brush-wood, to such a degree that the people of the Pergannahs, relying on these forests, take shelter in them, and, trusting to their inaccessible situation, often continue in a state of revolt, refusing to pay their taxes. In Hindustân, if you except the rivers, there is little running water. Now and then some

This practice Baber viewed with disgust, the hog being an impure animal in the Muhammedan law. The Ils and Ulûses."

* In Persia there are few rivers, but numbers of

there is an excessive quantity of earth and dust fly. ing about. When the rains are at hand, this wind blows five or six times with excessive violence, and artifical canals or water-runs for irrigation, and for the supply of water to towns and villages. The same is the case in the valley of Soghd, and the richer parts of Mâweralnaher.

"This is the wulsa or walsa, so well described by Colonel Wilks in his Historical Sketches, vol. i. p. 309, note: On the approach of an hostile army, the unfortunate inhabitants of India bury under ground their most cumbrous effects, and each individual, man, woman, and child above six years of age, (the infant children being carried by their mothers,) with a load of grain proportioned to their strength, issue from their beloved homes, and take the direction of a country (if such can be found) exempt from the miseries of war; sometimes of a strong fortress, but more generally of the most unfrequented hills and woods, where they prolong a miserable existence until the departure of the ene. my; and if this should be protracted beyond the time for which they have provided food, a largo portion necessarily dies of hunger.' See the note itself. The Historical Sketches should be read by every one who desires to have an accurate idea of the South of India. It is to be regretted that we do not possess the history of any other part of In dia, written with the same knowledge or research."

+ Baber's opinions regarding India are nearly the same with those of most Europeans of the upper class, even at the present day.

Grapes and musk-melons, particularly the lat. ter, are now common all over India.

such a quantity of dust flies about that you cannot | hill country to the east of Andejân, and the snow see one another. They call this an Andhi.* It fell so deep as to bury it, so that of the whole only gets warm during Taurus and Gemini, but not so two persons escaped, he no sooner received in warm as to become intolerable. The heat cannot formation of the occurrence, than he despatched be compared to the heats of Balkh and Kandahar. overseers to collect and take charge of all the propIt is not above half so warm as in these places.erty and effects of the people of the caravan; and, Another convenience of Hindustan is, that the wherever the heirs were not at hand, though him workmen of every profession and trade are innu- self in great want, his resources being exhausted, merable and without end. For any work, or any he placed the property under sequestration, and preemployment, there is always a set ready, to whom served it untouched; till, in the course of one or the same employment and trade have descended two years, the heirs, coming from Khorasân and from father to son for ages. In the Zefer-Nâmeh Samarkand, in consequence of the intimation which of Mulla Sherîf-ed-dîn Ali Yezdi, it is mentioned they received, he delivered back the goods safe as a surprising fact, that when Taimur Beg was and uninjured into their hands. His generosity building the Sangîn (or stone) mosque, there were was large, and so was his whole soul; he was of an stone-cutters of Azerbaejan, Fârs, Hindustân, and excellent temper, affable, eloquent, and sweet in other countries, to the number of two hundred, his conversation, yet brave withal, and manly. working every day on the mosque. In Agra alone, On two occasions he advanced in front of the and of stone-cutters belonging to that place only, I troops, and exhibited distinguished prowess; once, every day employed on my palaces six hundred and at the gates of Akhsi, and once at the gates of eighty persons; and in Agra, Sîkri, Biâna, Dhulpûr, Shahrokhîa. He was a middling shot with the Guâliar, and Koel, there were every day employed bow; he had uncommon force in his fists, and on my works one thousand four hundred and ninety-never hit a man whom he did not knock down. one stone-cutters. In the same way, men of every From his excessive ambition for conquest, he often trade and occupation are numberless and without exchanged peace for war, and friendship for hostility. stint in Hindustân. In the earlier part of his life he was greatly addicted to drinking bûzeh and talar. Latterly, once or twice in the week, he indulged in a drink. ing party. He was a pleasant companion, and in the course of conversation used often to cite, with great felicity, appropriate verses from the poets. In his latter days he was much addicted to the use of Maajûn, while under the influence of which he was subject to a feverish irritability. He was a humane man. He played a great deal at backgammon,

"The countries from Behreh to Behar, which are now under my dominion, yield a revenue of fifty-two krors,t as will appear from the particular and detailed statement. Of this amount, Pergannahs to the value of eight or nine krors are in the possession of some Rais and Rajas, who from old times have been submissive, and have received these Pergannahs for the purpose of confirming them in their obedience."

The following is the memorial of Hussain Mirza, king of Khorasan, who died in 1506:

These Memoirs contain many hundred char-and sometimes at games of chance with the dice.' acters and portraits of individuals; and it would not be fair not to give our readers one or two specimens of the royal author's minute style of execution on such subjects. We may begin with that of Omer-Sheikh Mirza, his grandfather, and immediate predecessor in the throne of Ferghana:

"Omer-Sheikh Mirza was of low stature, had a short bushy beard, brownish hair, and was very corpulent. He used to wear his tunic extremely fight; insomuch, that as he was wont to contract his belly while he tied the strings, when he let himself out again the strings often burst. He was not curious in either his food or dress. He tied his turban in the fashion called Destar-pêch (or plaited turban). At that time, all turbans were worn in the char-pêch (or four-plait) style. He wore his without folds, and allowed the end to hang down. During the heats, when out of the Divân, he generally wore the Moghul cap.

He read elegantly: his general reading was the Khamsahs, the Mesnevis, and books of his fory; and he was in particular fond of reading the Shabnameh.** Though he had a turn for poetry, he did not cultivate it. He was so strictly just, that when the caravan from Khitatt had once reached the

This is still the Hindustâni term for a storm, or tempest.

About a million and a half sterling, or rather 1,300,000l.

This statement unfortunately has not been preserved.

About 225,000l. sterling. Several Persian poets wrote Khamsahs, or poems, on five different given subjects. The most celebrated is Nezami.

The most celebrated of these Mesnevis is the mystical poem of Moulavi Jiluleddin Muhammed. The Sufis consider it as equal to the Koran.

** The Shahnameh, or Book of Kings, is the famous poem of the great Persian poet Ferdausi, and contains the romantic history of ancient Persia. ++ North China; but often applied to the whole

"He had straight narrow eyes. his body was robust and firm; from the waist downwards he was of a slenderer make. Although he was advanced in years, and had a white beard, he dressed in gay-coloured red and green woollen clothes. He usually wore a cap of black lamb's skin, or a kilpak. Now and then, on festival days, he put on a small turban tied in three folds, broad and showy, and having placed a plume nodding over it, went in this style to prayers.

"On first mounting the throne, he took it into his head that he would cause the names of the twelve Imams to be recited in the Khutbeh. Many used their endeavours to prevent him. Finally, however, he directed and arranged every thing according to the orthodox Sunni faith. From a disorder in his joints, he was unable to perform his prayers, nor could he observe the stated fasts. He was a lively, pleasant man. His temper was rather hasty, and his language took after his temper. In many instances he displayed a profound reverence for the faith; on one occasion, one of his sons having slain a man, he delivered him up to the avengers of blood to be carried before the judgment-seat of the Kazi. For about six or seven years after he first ascended the throne, he was very guarded in abstaining from such things as were forbidden by

country from China to Terfân, and now even west to the Ala-tagh Mountains.

*This anecdote is erroneously related of Baber himself by Ferishta and others.-See Dow's Hist. of Hindostan, vol. ii. p. 218.

+ Bûzeh is a sort of intoxicating liquor somewhat resembling beer, made from millet. Talar I do not know, but understand it to be a preparation from the poppy. There is, however, nothing about bûzeh or talar in the Persian, which only specifies sherab, wine or strong drink.

Any medical mixture is called a maajûn; but in common speech the term is chiefly applied to intoxicating comfits, and especially those prepared with bang.

the law; afterwards he became addicted to drinking "As we were guests at Mozeffer Mirza s house, wine. During nearly forty years that he was King Mozeffer Mirza placed me above himself, and havof Khorasan, not a day passed in which he did not ing filled up a glass of welcome, the cupbearers in drink after mid-day prayers; but he never drank waiting began to supply all who were of the party wine in the morning. His sons, the whole of the with pure wine, which they quaffed as if it had been soldiery, and the town's-people, followed his exam- the water of life. The party waxed warm, and the ple in this respect, and seemed to vie with each spirit mounted up to their heads. They took a fancy other in debauchery and lasciviousness. He was a to make me drink too, and bring me into the same brave and valiant man. He often engaged sword circle with themselves. Although, all that time, L in hand in fight, nay, frequently distinguished his had never been guilty of drinking wine, and from prowess hand to hand several times in the course of never having fallen into the practice was ignorant the same fight. No person of the race of Taimur of the sensations it produced, yet I had a strong Beg ever equalled Sultan Hussain Mirza in the use lurking inclination to wander in this desert, and my of the scymitar. He had a turn for poetry, and com- heart was much disposed to pass the stream. In posed a Diwân. He wrote in the Turki. His poet- my boyhood I had no wish for it, and did not know ical name was Hussaini. Many of his verses are far its pleasures or pains. When my father at any time from being bad, but the whole of the Mirza's Diwân asked me to drink wine, I excused myself, and abis in the same measure. Although a prince of dignity, stained. After my father's death, by the guardian both as to years and extent of territory, he was as care of Khwâjeh Kazi, I remained pure and undefond as a child of keeping butting rams, and of amu- filed. I abstained even from forbidden foods; how sing himself with flying pigeons and cock-fighting.' then was I likely to indulge in wine? Afterwards One of the most striking passages in the when, from the force of youthful imagination and constitutional impulse, I got a desire for wine, I had work is the royal author's account of the mag- nobody about my person to invite me to gratify my nificence of the court and city of Herat, when wishes; nay, there was not one who even suspected he visited it in 1506; and especially his im- my secret longing for it. Though I had the appeposing catalogue of the illustrious authors, art-tite, therefore, it was difficult for me, unsolicited as ists, and men of genius, by whom it was then I was, to indulge such unlawful desires. It now came into my head, that as they urged me so much, adorned. and as, besides, I had come into a refined city like Heri, in which every means of heightening pleasure and gaiety was possessed in perfection; in which all the incentives and apparatus of enjoyment were combined with an invitation to indulgence, if I did not seize the present moment, I never could expect such another. I therefore resolved to drink wine! But it struck me, that as Badîa-ez-zemân Mirza was the eldest brother, and as I had declined receiving it from his hand, and in his house, he might now take offence. I therefore mentioned this difficulty which had occurred to me. My excuse was ap proved of, and I was not pressed any more, at this party, to drink. It was settled, however, that the next time we met at Badîa-ez-zemân Mirza's, I should drink when pressed by the two Mirzas."

"The age of Sultan Hussain Mirza was certainly a wonderful age; and Khorasan, particularly the city of Heri, abounded with eminent men of unrivalled acquirements, each of whom made it his aim and ambition to carry to the highest perfection the art to which he devoted himself. Among these was the Moulana Abdal Rahman Jàmi, to whom there was no person of that period who could be compared, whether in respect to profane or sacred science. His poems are well known. The merits of the Mulla are of too exalted a nature to admit of being described by me; but I have been anxious to bring the mention of his name, and an allusion to his excellences, into these humble pages, for a good omen and a blessing!"

He then proceeds to enumerate the names of between thirty and forty distinguished per- the conscientious prince escaped from this By some providential accident, however, sons; ranking first the sages and theologians, to the number of eight or nine; next the meditated lapse; and it was not till some poets, about fifteen; then two or three paint-years after, that he gave way to the longers; and five or six performers and composers of music;-of one of these he gives the following instructive anecdote

of

"Another was Hussian Udi (the lutanist), who played with great taste on the lute, and composed elegantly. He could play, using only one string his lute at a time. He had the fault of giving him. self many airs when desired to play. On one occasion Sheibani Khan desired him to play. After giving much trouble he played very ill, and besides, did not bring his own instrument, but one that was good for nothing. Sheibâni Khan, on learning how matters stood, directed that, at that very party, he should receive a certain number of blows on the neck. This was one good deed that Sheibâni Khan did in his day; and indeed the affectation of such people deserves even more severe animadversion."

In the seductions of this luxurious court, Baber's orthodox abhorrence to wine was first assailed with temptation:-and there is something very naïve, we think, in his account of his reasonings and feelings on the occasion.

*No moral poet ever had a higher reputation than Jami. His poems are written with great beauty of language and versification, in a captivating strain of religious and philosophic mysticism. He is not merely admired for his sublimity as a poet, but venerated as a saint."

cherished and resisted propensity. At what particular occasion he first fell into the snare, unfortunately is not recorded-as there is a blank of several years in the Memoirs previous to 1519. In that year, however, we find him a confirmed toper; and nothing, indeed, can be more ludicrous than the accuracy and apparent truth with which he continues to chronicle all his subsequent and very frequent excesses. The Eastern votary of intoxication has a pleasant way of varying his enjoyments, which was never taken in the West. When the fluid elements of drunkenness begin to pall on him, he betakes him to what is learnedly called a maajûn, being a sort of electuary or confection, made up with pleasant spices, and rendered potent by a large admixture of opium, bang, and other narcotic ingredients; producing a solid intoxication of a very delightful and desirable description. One of the first drinking matches that is described makes honourable mention of this variety :

"The maajûn-takers and spirit-drinkers, as they have different tastes, are very apt to take offence with each other. I said, 'Don't spoil the cordiality of the party; whoever wishes to drink spirits, let

283

him suffering from the same wound.

*

Mûlly Mahmud, who did not drink, reproved Ab-
dalla for repeating this verse with levity. Abdalla,
recovering his judgment, was in terrible perturba-
tion, and conversed in a wonderfully smooth and
sweet strain all the rest of the evening.'

him drink spirits; and let him that prefers maajûn, I place till bed-time prayers. Mûll Mahmud Khalifeh take maajun; and let not the one party give any having arrived, we invited him to join us. Abdalla, idle or provoking language to the other.' Some sat who had got very drunk, made an observation down to spirits, some to maajûn. The party went which affected Khalîfeh. Without recollecting that on for some time tolerably well. Bâba Jan Kabûzi | Mûlla Mahmud was present, he repeated the verse, (Persian.) Examine whom you will, you will find had not been in the boat; we had sent for him when He chose to drink we reached the royal tents. spirits. Terdi Muhammed Kipchâk, too, was sent for, and joined the spirit-drinkers. As the spiritdrinkers and maajûn-takers never can agree in one party, the spirit-bibing party began to indulge in foolish and idle conversation, and to make provok. ing remarks on maajûn and maajun-takers. Bâba Jan, too, getting drunk, talked very absurdly. The tipplers, filling up glass after glass for Terdi Muhammed, made him drink them off, so that in a very short time he was mad drunk. Whatever exertions I could make to preserve peace, were all navailing; there was much uproar and wrangling. The party became quite burdensome and unpleasant, and soon broke up."

The second day after, we find the royal bacchanal still more grievously overtaken : "We continued drinking spirits in the boat till bed-time prayers, when, being completely drunk, we mounted, and taking torches in our hands came at full gallop back to the camp from the river-side, falling sometimes on one side of the horse, and sometimes on the other. I was miserably drunk, and next morning, when they told me of our having galloped into the camp with lighted torches in our hands, I had not the slightest recollection of the circumstance. After coming home, I vomited plentifully."

Even in the middle of a harassing and desultory campaign, there is no intermission of this excessive jollity, though it sometimes puts the parties into jeopardy,—for example:

In a year or two after this, when he seems to be in a course of unusual indulgence, we meet with the following edifying remark: "As I intend, when forty years old, to abstain from wine; and as I now want somewhat less than one year of being forty, I drink wine most copiously!" When forty comes, however, we hear nothing of this sage resolution -but have a regular record of the wine and maajûn parties as before, up to the year 1527. In that year, however, he is seized with rather a sudden fit of penitence, and has the resolu tion to begin a course of rigorous reform. There is something rather picturesque in his very solemn and remarkable account of this great revolution in his habits:

"On Monday the 23d of the first Jemâdi, I had mounted to survey my posts, and, in the course of my ride, was seriously struck with the reflection make an effectual repentance, and that some traces that I had always resolved, one time or another, to of a hankering after the renunciation of forbidden works had ever remained in my heart. Having sent for the gold and silver goblets and cups, with all the other utensils used for drinking parties, I directed them to be broken, and renounced the use of wine-purifying my mind! The fragments of the goblets, and other utensils of gold and silver, I directed to be divided among Derwîshes and the poor. The first person who followed me in my re

"We continued at this place drinking till the sun was on the decline, when we set out. Those who had been of the party were completely drunk. Syed Kâsim was so drunk, that two of his servants were obliged to put him on horseback, and brought him to the camp with great difficulty. Dost Muhammed Bâkir was so far gone, that Amin Mu-pentance was Asas, who also accompanied me in hammed Terkhân, Masti Chehreh, and those who were along with him, were unable, with all their exertions, to get him on horseback. They poured a great quantity of water over him, but all to no purpose. At this moment a body of Afghâns appeared in sight. Amîn Muhammed Terkhân, being very drunk, gravely gave it as his opinion, that rather than leave him, in the condition in which he was, to fall into the hands of the enemy, it was better at once to cut off his head, and carry it away. Making another exertion, however, with much difficulty, they contrived to throw him upon a horse, which they led along, and so brought him off."

On some occasions they contrive to be drunk four times in twenty-four hours. The gallant prince contents himself with a strong maajun one day; but

"Next morning we had a drinking party in the same tent. We continued drinking till night. On the following morning we again had an early cup: and, getting intoxicated, went to sleep. About noon-day prayers, we left Istâlîf, and I took a maajûn on the road. It was about afternoon prayers before I reached Behzadi. The crops were extremely good. While I was riding round the harvest-fields, such of my companions as were fond of wine began to contrive another drinking bout. Although I had taken a maajûn, yet, as the crops were uncommonly fine! we sat down under some trees that had yielded a plentiful load of fruit, and began to drink. We kept up the party in the same

allowing it to grow. That night and the following, my resolution of ceasing to cut the beard, and of numbers of Amîrs and courtiers, soldiers and persons not in the service, to the number of nearly three hundred men, made vows of reformation. The wine which we had with us we poured on the ground! I ordered that the wine brought by Bâba Dost should have salt thrown into it, that it might be make into vinegar. On the spot where the wine had been poured out, I directed a wâîn to be sunk and built of stone, and close by the wâîn an almshouse to be erected."

He then issued a magnificent Firman, announcing his reformation, and recommending its example to all his subjects. But he still persists, we find, in the use of a mild maajûn. We are sorry to be obliged to add, that though he had the firmness to persevere to the last in his abstinence from wine, the sacrifice seems to have cost him very dear; and he continued to the very end of his life to hanker after his broken wine-cups, and to look back with fond regret to the delights he had ab

* "This verse, I presume. is from a religious poem, and has a mystical meaning. The profane application of it is the ground of offence."

"This vow was sometimes made by persons who set out on a war against the Infidels. They did not trim the beard till they returned victorious. Some vows of a similar nature may be found in Scripture."

jured for ever. There is something abso- | tribution levied on her private fortune. The following brief anecdote speaks volumes as to the difference of European and Asiatic manners and tempers:

lutely pathetic, as well as amiable, in the following candid avowal in a letter written the very year before his death to one of his old drinking companions:

I am distressed since I renounced wine;
I am confounded and unfit for business,-
Regret leads me to penitence,
Penitence leads me to regret.

"Another of his wives was Katak Begum, who was the foster-sister of this same Terkhân Begum. Sultan Ahmed Mirza married her for love. He was prodigiously attached to her, and she governed him with absolute sway. She drank wine. During her life, the Sultan durst not venture to frequent any other of his ladies. At last, however, he put her to death, and delivered himself from this reproach."

In several of the passages we have cited, there are indications of this ambitious warrior's ardent love for fine flowers, beautiful gardens, and bright waters. But the work abounds with traits of this amiable and, with reference to some of these anecdotes, apparently ill-sorted propensity. In one place he

Indeed, last year, my desire and longing for wine
and social parties were beyond measure excessive.
It even came to such a length that I have found
myself shedding tears from vexation and disappoint-
ment. In the present year, praise be to God, these
troubles are over, and I ascribe them chiefly to the
Occupation afforded to my mind by a poetical trans-says-
lation, on which I have employed myself. Let me
advise you too, to adopt a life of abstinence. Social
parties and wine are pleasant, in company with our
jolly friends and old boon companions. But with
whom can you enjoy the social cup? With whom
can you indulge in the pleasures of wine? If you
have only Shir Ahmed, and Haîder Kulli, for the
companions of your gay hours and jovial goblet,
you can surely find no great difficulty in consenting
to the sacrifice. I conclude with every good wish."

found only in one narrow spot of ground, as we emerge from the straits of Ghûrbend."

And a little after

chekîn-taleh grass in a very beautiful manner, and "In the warm season they are covered with the the Aimaks and Turks resort to them. In the skirts of these mountains the ground is richly di versified by various kinds of tulips. I once directed them to be counted, and they brought in thirty-two one species which has a scent in some degree like or thirty-three different sorts of tulips. There is the rose, and which I termed laleh-gul-bûi (the rosescented tulip). This species is found only in the We have mentioned already that Baber ap- of ground, and nowhere else. In the skirts of the Desht-e-Sheikh (the Sheikh's plain), in a small spot pears to have been of a frank and generous same hills below Perwân, is produced the laleh-sedcharacter-and there are, throughout the Me-berg (or hundred-leaved tulip), which is likewise moirs, various traits of clemency and tenderness of heart, scarcely to have been expected in an Eastern monarch and professional warrior. He weeps ten whole days for the loss of a friend who fell over a precipice after one of their drinking parties; and spares the lives, and even restores the domains of various chieftains, who had betrayed his confidence, and afterwards fallen into his power. Yet there are traces of Asiatic ferocity, and of a hard-hearted wastefulness of life, which remind us that we are beyond the pale of European gallantry and Christian compassion. In his wars in Afghân and India, the prisoners are commonly butchered in cold blood after the action-and pretty uniformly a triumphal pyramid is erected of their skulls. These horrible executions, too, are performed with much solemnity before the royal pavilion; and on one occasion, it is incidentally recorded, that such was the number of prisoners brought forward for this infamous butchery, that the sovereign's tent had three times to be removed to a different station-the ground before it being so drenched with blood and encumbered with quivering carcasses! On one occasion, and on one only, an attempt was made to poison him-the mother of one of the sovereigns whom he had dethroned having bribed his cooks and tasters to mix death in his repast. Upon the detection of the plot, the taster was cut to pieces, the cook flayed alive, and the scullions trampled to death by elephants. Such, however, was the respect paid to rank, or the indulgence to maternal resentment, that the prime mover of the whole conspiracy, the queen dowager, a merely put under restraint, and has a con

Istâlif. A large river runs through it, and on either "Few quarters possess a district that can rival side of it are gardens, green, gay, and beautiful. Its water is so cold, that there is no need of icing it; and it is particularly pure. In this district is a gar den, called Bagh-e-Kilân (or the Great Garden), which Ulugh Beg Mirza seized upon. I paid the price of the garden to the proprietors, and received garden are large and beautiful spreading plane from them a grant of it. On the outside of the trees, under the shade of which there are agreeable spots finely sheltered. A perennial stream, large enough to turn a mill, runs through the garden; and on its banks are planted planes and other trees. Formerly this stream flowed in a winding and crooked course, but I ordered its course to be al tered according to a regular plan, which added greatly to the beauty of the place. Lower down than these villages, and about a koss or a koss and a half above the level plain, on the lower skirts of the hills, is a fountain, named Khwajeh-seh-yârân three species of trees; above the fountain are many (Kwajeh three friends), around which there are beautiful plane-trees, which yield a pleasant shade. On the two sides of the fountain, on small eminences at the bottom of the hills, there are a num ber of oak trees; except on these two spots, where there are groves of oak, there is not an oak to be of this fountain, towards the plain, there are many met with on the hills to the west of Kâbu!. In front spots covered with the flowery Arghwân tree, and besides these Arghwân plots, there are none else in the whole country."

We shall add but one other notice of this

"The name Arghwân is generally applied to the anemone; but in Afghanistan it is given to a beautiful flowering shrub, which grows nearly to the size of a tree."