tificial ingredient the course of the river has been completely
changed, and it now runs at about four miles distance.

Emerging from one of the most barren and desolate tracts of country that
it is possible to imagine, even the tombs of Tattah, or City of the
Dead, as it is called in the language of the natives, proved an
agreeable distraction to us. Tattah itself is a small, wretchedly built
town, containing little more than a thousand inhabitants, who are for
the most part of the Moslem religion. The few Hindoos who reside here
constitute the wealthier part of the trading community, but influential
as this fact would pre-suppose them, they are a persecuted and oppressed
race, the privilege of erecting places of worship within the precincts
of the town being not only denied them, but even the free exercise of
their religious rites. Aggressions of the most wanton and tyrannical
nature, and murders committed under circumstances of the most shocking
barbarity, and having their origin solely in religious jealousy, are
matters of no unfrequent occurrence here.

The Hindoos are consequently obliged to resort to the caves of the
neighbouring mountains, to practise their religious ceremonies, but the
relentless intolerance of their persecutors pursues them even there.
During our short stay we saw the bodies of two of the proscribed race,
who had been found murdered in one of their concealed temples.

The tombs of Tattah stand on a gentle eminence, at a short distance from
the town: they are of circular construction, and are, as nearly as I
could judge, from seventy to eighty feet in circumference, and from
thirty to forty feet in height. They are capped with domes, but their
external appearance presents nothing graceful or ornamental to the eye.
The interior is gained by a staircase, which ascends to an aperture
forming the entrance, about midway in the building, and a rudely
constructed ladder conducts the visitor downward to the basement, where
the bodies lie. The interior of the dome is lined with blue tiles richly
ornamented with arabesques and inscriptions from the Koran. There are
about a dozen of these remarkable monuments and they are clustered
together, without arrangement or regard for effect. Of the many sketches
taken at the time I have not seen one which conveys a correct idea of
their details. Although visited by nearly the whole of the troops, it is
a fact highly creditable to their good taste and feeling that