ings upon.'[2] The
buildings which they have left behind them have almost all a
reference to a future state--they laid out their means in a church,
in which the Deity might be propitiated; in a tomb where leaned and
pious men might chant their Koran over their remains, and youth be
instructed in their duties; in a serai, a bridge, a canal built
gratuitously for the public good, that those who enjoyed these
advantages from generation to generation might pray for the repose of
their souls. How could it be otherwise where the land was the
property of Government, where capital was never concentrated or safe,
when the only aristocracy was that of office, while the Emperor was
the sole recognized heir of all his public officers?

The only thing that he could not inherit were his tombs, his temples,
his bridges, his canals, his caravanserais. I was acquainted with the
history of most of the great men whose tombs and temples I visited
along the road; but I asked in vain for a sight of the palaces they
occupied in their day of pride and power. They all had, no doubt,
good houses agreeably situated, like that of the Begam Samru, in the
midst of well-watered gardens and shrubberies, delightful in their
season; but they cared less about them--they knew that the Emperor
was heir to every member of the great body to which they belonged,
the _aristocracy of office_; and might transfer all their wealth to
his treasury, and all their palaces to their successors, the moment
the breath should be out of their bodies.[3] If their sons got
office, it would neither be in the same grades nor in the same places
as those of their fathers.

How different it is in Europe, where our aristocracy is formed upon a
different basis; no one knows where to find the tombs in which the
remains of great men who have passed away repose; or the churches and
colleges they have founded; or the serais, the bridges, the canals
they formed gratuitously for the public good; but everybody knows
where to find their 'proud palaces'; life is not to them 'a bridge
over which they are to pass, and not build their dwellings upon'. The
eldest sons enjoy all the patrimonial estates, and employ them as
best they may to get their younger brothers into situations in the
church, the army, the navy, and other public establishments, in which
they may be honourably and liberally provided for out of the public
purse.

About half-way between the great tower and the new city, on t