hands and feet, but also on their toes. Of thefe precious ornaments every individual had fecured fo ample a store, that they refused the incumbrance of more, and vaft heaps of various plunder of inestimable value were left behind. These are nearly the words of the Perfian author, who bears the ftricteft character in the Eaft for veracity, and who was contemporary with the monarch whose history he relates.

Under the dynasty of kings that immediately fucceeded the invafion of Timur, Delhi foon recovered its priftine fplendour and importance as the imperial city of Hindoftan. In the courfe of a few ages that city became again crowded with many majestic monuments of Patan grandeur, in mofques, baths, and caravanferas, and the fepulchres of its deceased monarchs of that line, as well as of many other holy and illuftrious men, whofe names are enumerated in the Ayeen Akbery, presented to the eye of travellers an awful and ftriking fpectacle.

When Baber, advancing from his imperial city of Cabul, on the north-weft frontiers of Hindoftan, had overturned the power of the Patans in the perfon of Ibrahim, the court refided alternately at Agra and Delhi. The ufurper Shire, who during his fhort reign erected throughout Hindoftan many stately edifices, and among

among others that fuperb maufoleum in Baharr,
in which he lies interred, pulled down the ancient
town of Seiri, and built a new city on its founda-
tion; which, however, when Abul Fazil, who
relates this fact, wrote the Inftitutes of Acbar,
was for the moft part in ruins. Homaion, on
his restoration to that throne, which Shire and
his family had fo long ufurped, laid the foun-
dations of a new and magnificent palace at Delhi,
which he did not live to finish; but meeting
his fate fhortly after in that city, from the
effects of too powerful a dofe of opium, was
himself buried on the banks of the neighbouring
Jumna, where a noble monument was erected
over his remains by the great Acbar, his fon
and fucceffor in the imperial dignity.
most renowned of all the fovereigns of the house
of Timur, contributed no otherwise to its or
nament; but, on the contrary, by fixing his
refidence for the most part at Agra, and lavish-
ing fuch immense fums on the structure of its
castle, and on the stupendous erections at Se-
cundra in its neighbourhood, completed the
ruin which time and neglect had united to

That

r This noble monument of the magnificience of Shire still remains entire. It stands in the centre of a grand artificial lake, nearly a mile in length. There has been lately published an elegant engraving of it, from a painting by Mr. Hodges.

fpread

fpread through the wide circumference, and amidft the defolated towers of Delhi.

Notwithstanding the aftonishing sums expend▾ ed by Acbar on the palace, or rather the caftle of Agra, for all the eastern palaces are built with a view to defence, the fituation, upon a fcorched fandy foil, and under a more fouthern fun, was neither efteemed fo falubrious by his fucceffors, nor fo centrical for the command of the various provinces of the empire, according to its divifions at that period (for the fouthern parts of the peninfula were not yet fubjugated), as was that of Delhi. The turbulent governors of the northern provinces bordering upon Perfia were perpetually fomenting rebellions; and for their extinction were required the speedy, the effectual, and the concentrated exertions of the fupreme authority. Actuated partly by thefe motives, and partly by the defire of immortalizing his name, in the erection of a city that should exceed in grandeur all the other cities of Hindoftan, Jehaun Shaw, the grandson of Acbar, in A. D. 1647, according to Frafer, rebuilt Delhi from the ground,

Terry thinks this city, fituated in the heart of the empire, was called Delhi, or, as he writes it, Dellee, from a word in the Indoftan language fignifying a heart: Dill is the Indian word for heart. It should more properly be written DEHLY.

and

and called the new city Jehaunabad, after his own name. He at the fame time conftructed a palace not lefs diftinguished for its fpacious and fplendid apartments, calculated for every purpose of state and luxury, than for the extent and beauty of the gardens with which it was adorned, where every odorous plant and beautiful flower of Afia at once feasted the eye with delight, and filled the air with fragrance; where fountains of the pureft water perpetually flowed; and where vaft artificial caverns sheltered the fainting fugitive from the fevere fervours of an eaftern noon.

To enter into a minute detail of all the curi ofities contained in this new city, and this extraordinary palace, which was particularly famous for the throne erected by the fame prince, in the form of a peacock, with its tail expanded, and entirely compofed of diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and faphires, and of all the vaft treasures amaffed in this capital by that oftentatious monarch, as related by Bernier, Thevenot, and Tavernier, would be to fwell these prefatory pages to a magnitude disproportioned to the body of the history itself. Reserving, therefore, the remaining hiftory of this famed metropolis for those more recent periods to which it perly belongs, I fhall conclude this account of

pro

its ancient grandeur, by obferving in general, that from the death of Shaw Jehaun, till the year thirty-eight of the prefent century, Delhi continued to flourifh in increased consequence and fplendour as the capital of Hindoftan. In that year, so fatal to the towering majesty of the Mogul monarchs in India, a barbarian more deeply stained with blood than even Timur himfelf, whose native ferocity of foul was aggravated and inflamed by the stings of infatiable avarice, entered the richest metropolis in the world; once more devoted its haplefs inhabitants to unreftrained maffacre; and plundered its fumptuous palace of the accumulated wealth of ages. According to Frafer's calculation, the invafion of Nadir coft Hindoftan 100 millions of pounds fterling, and 200,000 lives. The feveral conquerors of this ill-fated city feem to have advanced progreffively in the fcale of horrible enormity. A dæmon of cruelty yet remains to be noticed, whofe unprecedented barbarities make humanity fhudder, and whose outrages extended to the grave itfelf. Ahmed Abdollah, who upon the death of Nadir had erected into an independant monarchy the provinces bordering upon Perfia on the one hand, and upon Hindoftan on the other, in the year 1756 marched into Delhi, which he gave up for three days to

be