OXEN AND HORSES.

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in the northern part of the province are noble animals, superior in strength, size, and docility; some of them travel with a hackery from thirty to forty miles a day, and are yoked to the carriages of the wealthy Hindoos in distant parts of India. I had a very fine pair of these white oxen, in spirit, size, and beauty, equal to most I ever saw in Guzerat; and in sweetness of temper and gentleness of manners nearly approaching the elephant formerly described in Ragobah's campaign. With these animals I travelled many thousand miles in this delightful province. The Ayeen Akbery mentions some of these oxen valued at one hundred golden mohurs the pair, a sum nearly equal to two hundred pounds sterling; the common price at that period was from ten to twenty mohurs a pair; while at the same time the usual price of a good cow, yielding daily twenty quarts of milk, was only ten rupees, or twentyfive shillings, in the beast market at Delhi. A smaller breed of these animals is employed in the province in agriculture, and the transportation of merchandize. There is also a variety of inferior oxen in size, strength, and value, reared in different parts of Guzerat for the same purposes; these are of all colours, and with the usual characteristics of the species in other parts of Hindostan.

Horses in India are seldom employed for the pack or draft; a great number are bred in different parts of Guzerat to supply the cavalry of the respective governments; those of Cutch and Cottyawar are in high estimation, but the best horses are brought to India from Arabia, Persia, and Tartary; from the two former the trading vessels sometimes import mules of a large size, which are very serviceable animals, and

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APPROACH THE CAPITAL.

far more hardy than the fine breed of horses brought from the same country. Many horses of various descriptions are bred in the Deckan and the northern provinces of Hindostan, all of which are sure to find purchasers at the courts of princes, and especially in the Mahratta armies. The horses of Thibet are a peculiar race, generally pied, not exceeding the English galloways in size, natural amblers, and much valued as pads.

Such were the animal and vegetable productions of the country through which we were now travelling. If the government of Mohman Caun, nabob of Cambay, was discouraging and oppressive, I am sorry to say there was no amelioration for the peasantry when we left his purgunna and entered the Mahratta dominions. Whether the districts were under the immediate government of delegates from the peshwa at Poonah, or ruled by different branches of the Guicawar sovereigns in Guzerat, the evils of despotism every where prevailed; the rapacity of venal and corrupt zemindars was felt in every village, and left the wretched inhabitants no choice of masters. Little as the poor ryot of India knows of a comfortable home, that little is most cruelly infringed by rapacious harpies of every description.

The nearer we approached the capital the more we traced the former splendour and magnificence of the moguls ruined palaces, gardens, and mausoleums, which once adorned the country, now add a striking and melancholy feature to its desolation; these are conspicuous in every village in the campagna of Ahmedabad, and form a striking contrast to the mud cottages and thatched hovels of the Mahratta peasantry..

MAHOMEDAN TOMBS.

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On our arrival at Betwah, or Puttowah, which we were told had once formed a part of the suburbs of Ahmedabad (but was now a detached village five miles from the city walls), we were conducted to a large square, containing several Mahomedan tombs and grand mausoleums; some were of white marble, others of stone, covered with the finest stucco, white as alabaster, and exquisitely polished. The domes were supported by elegant columns, their concaves richly ornamented, and the tessellated marble pavements, beautifully arranged, vied with those of ancient Rome in the museum at Portici ; the tracery in the windows resembled the Gothic specimens in European cathedrals; and the small cupolas which cover each tomb are of fine marble, curiously inlaid with fruit and flowers, in festoons of ivory, mother-of-pearl, cornelians, onyxes, and precious stones, as neat as in European snuff-boxes. The small tombs in the centre of the building are adorned with palls of gold and silver stuff, strewed with jessamin and mogrees, and hung round with ostriches' eggs and lamps, which are kept continually burning by the fakeers and dervises maintained there for that purpose.

Near most of the Mahomedan cities in Asia are these extensive cemeteries (none being allowed within the walls), containing a number of beautful temples, sometimes supported by pillars and open on all sides, at others closed like a sepulchral chamber, with only one door; each has a marble tomb in the centre, under which is deposited the body of the deceased. These burying-grounds frequently afforded shelter to the weary traveller when overtaken by the night, and

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RESPECT FOR THE DEAD.

at a loss for better accommodation; and their recesses are also a hiding-place for thieves and murderers, who sally out from thence to commit their nocturnal depredations. Thus we read in Scripture of demoniacs dwelling among the tombs in Judea; they are likewise the scene of many adventures in the Persian and Arabian tales.

Except among the Parsees, whom I have mentioned as the followers of Zoroaster, there seems to prevail throughout India the greatest respect and affectionate veneration for the dead. The pious attentions of the Mahomedans, from the magnificent mausoleum of Taje Mahal, the crown of the seraglio at Agra, to the humblest grave strewed with flowers in the village cemetery, confirm this pleasing truth; and although the Hindoos in general, after burning the body of the deceased and scattering the ashes into the air, do not erect a monument or a cenotaph in any particular spot, yet the parent lives in the memory of his children, and the husband in that of his wife, if she survive him. Numerous annual ceremonies are enjoined, and most affectionately performed by the Hindoos to the manes of their ancestors. Mr. Wilkins, in a note upon the Heetopades, informs us, that a Hindoo's hope of happiness after death depends upon his having a son to perform the offering of the consecrated cake, and other ceremonies, by which he expects that his soul will be released from the torments of Naraka. And we find that Absalom in his life-time reared up for himself a pillar in the king's dale, because he had no son to keep his name in remembrance.

MAUSOLEUMS.

"Mark the sad rose, once summer's darling pride,
That threw its blooming odours far and wide,
Now all its bright, its blushing honours past;
Too dazzling fair, alas! and sweet to last!

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"But, though scatter'd be each silken leaf,
By cruel Time, that sad despoiling thief,
Still from those leaves exhales a rich perfume;
Still they are sweet, though they have ceased to bloom!
So lov'd remembrances of joys long fled,

O'er the sad heart their soothing influence shed:
While in the breast is sav'd each wither'd leaf

Of past delight,-to soothe its present grief!"

BY A YOUNG LADY.

I was delighted with the mausoleums at Betwah, but the Mullahs assured me they were inferior to those at Agra and Delhi, where imperial wealth and magnificence had united to decorate the tombs of the Mogul princes and their favourite sultanas; the ornamental parts being entirely composed of agates, cornelians, turquoise, lapis lazuli, and other valuable gems, rivaling the most admired specimens of the inlaid marbles at Florence; where I compared the charming originals on the tombs of the Medici, with some beautiful drawings of the Tage Mahal at Agra, belonging to an English lady in Tuscany, who had visited that magnificent shrine. How forcibly do these remind us of the truth and beauty of the metaphorical language in the Sacred Page, promising sublime and spiritual joys under allusions from these subjects in oriental palaces! In the prophetical books of the Old Testament it is said, "I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones."-Isaiah, ch. liv. ver. 12. In