ine-looking buildings
were shops. I was impressed by their importance, for they were quite what
would be described by an auctioneer or agent as "most desirable family
mansions, approached by a carriage drive ... standing within their own
beautifully wooded and secluded grounds in an excellent residential
neighbourhood," &c. &c.

Anon we whirled round a corner, and plunged into the seething life of the
native city. The road was crammed with an apparently impenetrable crowd of
men and beasts, the latter--water-buffaloes, humpy cattle, and
donkeys--strolling about and getting in everybody's way with perfect
nonchalance, while men in strange raiment of gaudy hue pursued their
lawful occupations with much clamour. The variety of smells--all bad--was
quite remarkable.

We could only go at a walk, as the streets were very narrow and the
inhabitants thereof--particularly the cows--seemed very deaf and difficult
to arouse to a sense of the need for making room, though our good driver
yelled himself hoarse and employed language which I feel sure was highly
flavoured. Our progress was a succession of marvellous escapes for human
toes and bovine shoulders, but our "helmsman steered us through," and we
emerged from the kaleidoscopic labyrinth into the open space before the
Fort of Lahore, whose pinkish brick walls and ponderous bastions rose
above us.

The last thing I would desire would be to usurp in any way the functions
of grave Mr. Murray or well-informed Herr Baedeker, but there are certain
points to which I will draw attention, and which it seems to me very
necessary to keep in mind.

To the ordinary traveller in the Punjab and Northern India no buildings
are more attractive, no ruins more interesting, than those of the Mogul
dynasty, and the rule of the Mogul princes marks the high-water limit of
Indian magnificence. It was but for a short time, too, that the highest
level of grandeur was maintained.

For generations the Moguls had poured in intermittent hordes into Northern
India, but it was only in 1556 that Akbar, by defeating the Pathans at
Panipat, laid India at his feet. Following up his success he overthrew the
Rajputs, and extended his dominion from Afghanistan to Benares. Having
conquered the country as a great warrior, he proceeded to rule it as a
noble statesman, being "one of the few sovereigns entitled to the
appellation both of Great and Good, and the only one of Mohammedan race
whose mind appears to have