ir Modava. Lord Tremlyn had more than once manifested a
desire to be in the same carriage with Miss Blanche; and he went with her
and Louis on this occasion, while Mr. and Mrs. Woolridge invited General
Noury to accompany them.

"Akbar made Agra the capital of the Mogul Empire," said Sir Modava, as the
carriage started. "He changed its old name to Akbarabad, and the natives
call it so to this day."

"The termination of that name seems to be very common in India, as
Allahabad, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad," added the commander.

"In the Hindu, _abad_ means a town or a village; and if you cut off
that ending you will find the person or place for whom it was named, as
Akbar-abad."

"Precisely as it is in our country, where we have Morris-town, Allen-town,
Morgan-town, and a thousand others," added the captain.

"After the death of Akbar his successors reigned in Delhi. The Mogul Empire
came to an end in 1761; and Agra was sacked by the Jats, and later the
Mahrattas completed the destruction they had begun. It was captured from
Scindia in 1803 by the English under Lord Lake, and has since remained in
their possession. In all these disasters its population, which had been
seven hundred thousand, dropped to ten thousand; but under British rule it
recovered some of its former prosperity, and it is now about one hundred
and seventy thousand."

"If a man wants to build a house here he has only to dig for the material,
for not far down he will find the stone and brick of the structures that
crumbled into the earth after the death of the great emperor. We are now
approaching the fortress, or the citadel as it is oftener called. It is a
sort of acropolis, for it contains palaces, mosques, halls of justice, and
other buildings."

The carriages stopped at the principal gate, opposite to which is the
mosque of Jummah Musjid, or the Cathedral Mosque. About all the great
structures here are built of red sandstone, with marble bands on many of
them, so that it is hardly necessary to mention the material, unless it
varies from the rule. This mosque is a fine one, mounted on a marble
esplanade or platform, like most buildings of this description.

Crossing the drawbridge, the visitors came to the Palace of Justice, built
by Akbar. It is six hundred feet long, enclosed by a colonnade of arches,
like a cloister. It is now used as a military storeroom, divided by brick
walls, and filled with cannon and shot. The English have made a sort of
m