is said to be of inferior quality. All the cultivated and peopled
parts are beautifully studded with single trees and groves.

No respectable dwelling-house is anywhere to be seen, and the most
substantial landholders live in wretched mud-hovels with invisible
covers. I asked the people why, and was told that they were always
too insecure to lay out anything in improving their dwelling-houses;
and, besides, did not like to have such local ties, where they were
so liable to be driven away by the Government officers or by the
landholders in arms against them, and their reckless followers. The
local officers of Government, of the highest grade, occupy houses of
the same wretched description, for none of them can be sure of
occupying them a year, or of ever returning to them again when once
removed from their present offices; and they know that neither their
successors nor any one else will ever purchase or pay rent for them.
No mosques, mausoleums, temples, seraees, colleges, courts of
justice, or prisons to be seen in any of the towns or villages. There
are a few Hindoo shrines at the half-dozen places which popular
legends have rendered places of pilgrimage, and a few small tanks and
bridges made in olden times by public officers, when they were more
secure in their tenure of office than they are now. All the fine
buildings raised by former rulers and their officers at the old
capital of Fyzabad are going fast to ruin. The old city of Ajoodhea
is a ruin, with the exception of a few buildings along the bank of
the river raised by wealthy Hindoos in honour of Ram, who once lived
and reigned there, and is believed by all Hindoos to have been an
incarnation of Vishnoo.

I have often mentioned that the artillery draft-bullocks receive no
grain, and are everywhere so poor that they can hardly walk, much
less draw heavy guns and tumbrils. The reason is this, the most
influential men at Court obtain the charge of feeding the cattle in
all the different establishments, and charge for a certain quantity
of grain or other food at the market price for each animal. They
contract for the supply of the cattle with some grain-merchant of the
city, who undertakes to distribute it through his own agents. The
contractor for the supply of the artillery draft-bullocks sends an
agent with those in attendance upon every collector of the land
revenue, and he gives them as little as possible. The contractor,
afraid of making an enemy of the