place is overgrown with shrubs and bushes; but its being in so high a state of preservation, when it can have undergone no repairs for at least the last hundred years, evidently indicates the superior nature of its materials and workmanship. Advancing further, we passed by another mosque in pretty good preservation, but remarkable for nothing but a tradition yet current among the inhabitants around, that when it was built, a man was immured alive in the cupola for offering violence to some female, possibly one of the royal family. We entered the Fort on the east side, and took a slight view of the remaining wall, northward of what, as already mentioned, has by some been deemed an inclosure for a Hindoo temple, and by others, in our opinion with far greater propriety, the remains of a royal palace. The north wall appears at a distance nearly a hundred feet high; for which we could assign no possible reason, if it were intended merely for an inclosure to a temple. Leaving on our left the tombs of the Mussulman sovereigns, we hastened, as our time was so far spent, to take a view of the north gate of the fort, which perhaps presents the handsomest appearance of any ruins now remaining. Its breadth on the outside is fifty-six feet, and its height, full sixty. Within, it consists of one long arch, somewhat more than sixty feet long, which formed the entrance; and of two side arches, which have the appearance of vaults from their gloominess. Each of these would have contained to advantage nearly three hundred men, who, from the three arched openings on each side, about six feet wide, might have dreadfully annoyed an enemy even after he had forced the gate; while, hidden by the three massy columns, eight feet square, completely covered above, and sheltered behind and at the sides by the wall which

divides the gateway from the rampart, and which, from its time-worn appearance, now almost resembles a rock, they could scarcely have been assailed in return. We ascended the west rampart here, and proceeded as far on the top of the gateway as appeared safe. This rampart, which is full as high as that which formerly surrounded the city, appears still better calculated for defence. It is sloping within, but without, it is perpendicular, and surrounded with a deep moat, at present filled with water, the alligators in which add nothing to the sense of security felt by the traveller who visits this once far-famed capital.'

We now rejoin Bishop Heber in his progress up the river. On approaching Rajmahal, a range of blue elevations is, for the first time, seen rising from the flat surface of the Bengal plains; an engaging sight after being so long accustomed to a level horizon. The river is here divided by a string of marshy islands. The country improves as the traveller advances, being prettily dotted with small woods, and cultivated chiefly with pulse; a crop which shews that he is leaving Bengal. It still continues, however, perfectly flat, as if all had once been a bay of the sea, of which the hills in view were the termination."

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Rajmahal, which Sultan Sujah made the capital of his viceroyalty in the middle of the seventeenth century, retains few traces of its former consequence.† A

* Bats and owls take refuge in the mouldering ruins, which are the haunt also of the wild beasts of the desert. The whole description strikingly corresponds to the prophetic denunciation respecting Babylon. "Wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures (marsh animals); and owls shall dwell there; and satyrs (apes) shall dance there; and the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons (alligators) in their pleasant palaces."-Isa. xiii., 21, 2. During the reign of Akbar, Rajah Mause Singh, on his

terrible fire burned the palace to the ground; and in the same year, the river carried away nearly the whole of the town. What remains, is only a street of mud cottages, with a few tombs and mosques, black, damp, and decaying, which afford shelter to poor travellers and mendicants. The ruins of a spacious palace, however, which the river is year by year breaking down, form a very picturesque object, whether viewed from the river, or in wandering through the silent and forsaken apartments, some of which are of marble. Rajmahal is 70 miles N. N. W. of Moorshedabad.

The country here is very pleasing. At Sicligully (Sancri-guli, the narrow pass), about eight miles further N. W., the traveller enters Bahar. "The spot is most beautiful. The river here makes a rapid turn to the S. E., after having for 300 miles been obliged to run nearly E., and gives an extensive view both upwards and downwards. The bank is well wooded, and the blue mountains at a distance serve to complete the landscape." A large waterfall is seen from a great distance, tumbling down the mountain în several cascades; that nearest the plain is of considerable height. Sicligully itself is a village of huts with a bungalow in ruins, and the ruinous barracks of the sepoy corps raised by Judge Cleveland from among the lawless inhabitants of the mountains. The bungalow is at the base of a high, rocky, insu

return from the conquest of the Afghans of Orissa, fixed upon the city of Agmahal for the capital of Bengal, the name of which he changed to Rajamahal; but by the Mohammedans, it is occasionally designated by the name of Akbernagur. In 1608, the seat of government was removed from hence to Dacca, by Islam Khan; but in 1639, Sultan Sujah brought it back to Rajmahal.”—Hamilton's Gazetteer.

lated eminence, surmounted with a Mohammedan tomb, the dome roof of which, though three hundred years old, remains entire. *

Peer Pointee, a detached hill which projects into the river, some miles higher up, takes its name from another Mussulman saint, whose tomb, resembling that at Sicligully, though less picturesquely situated, stands on a little cliff above the river, overhung with some fine bamboos. The rocks here are covered with representations, in rude relief, of Hindoo deities. Some vagabond fakeers dwell in a shed near them, who live by begging and exaction. Near Colgong, there are two or three small rocky islands in the middle of the stream, one of which contains the deserted hermitage of one of these devotees. At a place called Puttur Gotta, the limestone rock is pierced with caverns. To one of these, Bishop Heber scrambled up by a rugged path, and found a larger and finer cave than he had anticipated, picturesquely overhung with ivy and peepul-trees. The entrance is rude and large; the apartments within branch off two or three ways, and appeared by the imperfect light to bear marks of art. There is a sort of shallow cistern cut in the rock, "which seems very like a place for making chunam ;"

"The ancient honours of the lamp kept burning, &c. have long been discontinued; but I was told, that it was the general opinion, both of Mussulmans and Hindoos, that, every Thursday night, a tiger comes, couches close to the grave, and remains there till morning... Either the tiger or some pious Mussulman keeps the tomb very clean; for both chamber and platform, I found well swept, and free from the dung of bats or any other animal; an attention which I have not seen paid to other ruins in this country." Heber, vol. i. p. 262. A similar superstition is attached to a holy spot between Kazeroon and Shiraz, where the shade of a lion is believed to do homage every Friday. See MOD. TRAV., Persia, vol. i. p. 330.

and the Bishop was led to suspect that the cave had been used as a quarry for limestone. "I was told," he adds, "that there were many other pretty religious places about the rock, to which I desired Mohammed to lead me. He took me round the base of the hill, and then shewed the way up a sort of ladder, half natural, of roots of trees and of rocks, half artificial, where the stone had been cut away into rude steps, to a small rocky platform, half way up the cliff, facing the river. There were some other small caves, evidently the works of art, with low doors, like ovens, and some rude carving over and round them. I crept into one, and found it a little hermitage about twelve feet wide by eight, having at each end a low stone couch, and, opposite the entrance, a sort of bracket, either for a lamp or an idol........I climbed from this place a few steps higher, to another and larger platform, with a low wall round it. Here I found two little temples to Siva and to Kali, kept by an old gossain (Hindoo hermit) with two disciples, one a grown man, the other a boy. The old man had long white hair and beard, and was sitting naked, with his hands joined and his eyes half shut, amid the breezes of the river. The boy was near him, and the man, on hearing our voices, had got up in a hurry, and began to murmur prayers, and pour water on the lingam. A small gratuity, however, brought him back to the civilities of this world; and he shewed me not only Siva's symbol, but Kali, with her black face, scull chaplet, and many hands. He also shewed me the remains of several other images, cut on the face of the rock, but which had been broken by the Mussulman conquerors. Under these last were two small holes like those below, which they told me were, in fact, their lodgings. I asked if they knew any thing about the cave on the