tulips, which produce a wonderful effect in the spring." Such is the description of the appearance of Cashmere by a Mussulman; and if you will read Bernier, who accompanied Aureng Zebe in a journey to that delightful country, you will find the French physician as enthusiastic an admirer of it as the Mogul historian.

All Cashmere is holy ground to the Hindûs, a peculiar sect of whom, calling themselves Rishis, professed celibacy and abstinence. They reviled no other sect, and asked nothing from any one; but made it a duty to plant fruit trees by the road side to refresh the traveller, and to perform similar acts of benevolence.

Cashmere produces in abundance all the fruits of Europe and of Asia: it furnishes a great deal of silk, and all those beautiful shawls called Indian shawls, which are worn wherever Commerce has extended her sails or rested her caravans. The country is exceedingly populous, and the inhabitants addicted to simple pleasures I believe I should call them, to distinguish them from vicious indulgencies. A weaver of Cashmere has no sooner earned a little money, than he proceeds to the banks of a lake or river, and there with his family hires a boat, in which they pass the day, rowing or sailing amidst the most beautiful scenery in the world, and only landing to take refreshment, or walk in the

meadows and gardens which are fertilized by the streams and lakes formed by the heads of the Indus, ere he leaves their happy valley. The country is free from poisonous snakes and scorpions, but produces excellent sheep, elks, and partridges; hawking and hunting are favourite amusements, and the principal food of the inhabitants is rice and fish.

I once saw a picture or map of Cashmere, which was brought to Calcutta by some shawlmerchants. It was painted upon a square of cotton cloth, and professed not only to trace the situations of the towns, lakes, and rivers, but even the houses, bridges, and public pleasure gardens. The encircling mountains were coloured with all the gradations from the deepest verdure at the foot, to the snowy hue of the summits; and among the valleys, on the side towards Cashmere, there was scarcely one which had not a Hindû temple or a Mussulman mosque. In the public pleasure ground, called Almeidân, parties were represented sitting under the shade of spreading groves; and at the different bridges over the canals, or on the banks of the reservoirs which water the gardens, were multitudes of boats for hire, and the lakes and rivers were crowded with parties in barks of various sizes and degrees of beauty. I immediately thought of the demesnes of the Castle of

Indolence, and half expected to hear the syrens' witching flute, and feel the softened air: but the knight of arts and industry had already been there, and the leisure which the Cashmerians seem so passionately fond of, is the fair reward of toil and ingenuity.

The inhabitants of this terrestrial paradise are partly Hindû and partly Mussulman, with a mixture, however, of Jews, who are supposed to be part of the ten tribes carried into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar; and Bernier, who took some pains to ascertain the fact, seems to believe it.

The other sircars which in the time of Akbar formed part of the soubah of Cashmere-namely, Pekhely, Bhember, Sewad, Bijore, Kandahar, and Kabul, partake more or less of its physical advantages, being all diversified with woods and mountains, and watered with abundant streams. They occasionally procure gold in some of their rivers, by laying a fleece in the water, and the next day they usually find the grains of the metal entangled in it, so that they have only the trouble of watching it. The whole soubah abounds in springs, many of which are intermittent, others are hot, some petrify, and others produce salt. The hills and mountains, besides the mines of various metals, contain many singular caverns, to which the superstition of the

people has, as usual, ascribed a miraculous origin.

Such is the picture of Hindostan left us by Abu Fazel, who wrote in the sixteenth century: a picture probably flattering, and certainly very different from that presented on our acquiring possession of the territory; but the long and happy reign of Akbar, which lasted half a century, and was distinguished by the most regular and wise government that ever blessed Hindostan, since the first Mussulman invasion, had restored to the cultivator confidence, and to the manufacturer security. Although the taxes were in some districts extremely high, in Cashmere for instance, equal to one half the produce of the land, the mildness and equity of the government, and the greater commerce carried on by the highest taxed soubahs, in proportion to their cultivated lands, made the taxes on real property as light as in those actually rated at less.

In my next letter I shall endeavour to give you an account of the Deccan or South. This name has sometimes been applied to the whole peninsula south of the Nermada; but, since the Mahomedan conquest, seems not to have extended further than to the banks of the Kistna.

The twelve soubahs of Akbar comprehended some parts of the Deccan; but they may be

easily distinguished from the true provinces of the empire of Dehli by their situation, and perhaps I ought to have reserved them for their proper place, but I thought it better to present you with the statement of the Ayeen Akbery, without changing any thing, as it is unquestionably the most authentic document we possess of the former state of India.

LETTER IX.

AFTER my last long letter on the geography of India, you will, I fancy, think me unreasonable to begin another with the same subject. But I had only laid before you the ancient divisions of India, more properly called Bharata, when we are speaking of it before the Mahomedan conquest, and the provinces of Hindostan Proper, or the country north of the Nermada or Nerbudda, with the very small portion of the Deccan, annexed by Akbar to the Mogul empire. I must now mention the kingdoms of the South, or Deccan, in its widest extent, that is, from the Nermada to Cape Comorin, about fifteen degrees of latitude.

The greater part of this tract consists of high table-land, elevated from three to five thousand