every part of his dominions, whose business it was to report instances of oppression, where the injured feared to appeal-Conscious of the dangers that surrounded him, Selim's secret intrigues were unceasingly exerted for deposing Aurungzebe, and reinstating his imprisoned father. Conceiving justly as he did that times of discord and confusion were likely to postpone the reckoning of his enormities, and that should Shaw Jehan be restored, gratitude for his services might make them be altogether forgotten.

Selim's first and favourite wife had died shortly after presenting him with the only child, (a daughter,) with which he was blessed. Noorun, as she grew up became exquisitely lovely-her face was softer than the lotus of Jumna, and her eyes brighter than the lambent lightnings of even, when the dimpled moon smiles through her gauzy canopy.-Though without almost any exception, Asiatic maidens have dark eyes and raven hair, yet is there no less difference in their charms than with us, where a much greater diversity of shades and complexions exist. This proves the mind to be in an eminent degree the moulder of beauty. How different are the same features in different individuals? In one, the eyes are perhaps sluggishly inanimate, whilst in another they sparkle, and absolutely scintillate witchery! Were we therefore to attempt conveying a notion of the Rajah's daughter by merely enumerating the items of her portrait, we should but recapitulate the description we have already given of Rhada, and yet the girls were very dissimilar.-Noorun was not flippant and jocund, but rather pensive and contemplative; her long glossy eye-lashes, fringed eyes bright as ever beamed, but which seldom dilated with mirthful playfulness; on the contrary, they seemed ever swimming with that coy affection and winning tenderness which are equally effectual for ensnaring the heart as the sprightliest glances. We will not however anticipate further either Noorun's character or appearance, but merely state she was doted on by a father whose

every act of injustice to his subjects was equalled by kindness and indulgence towards her.

Ajimut had espoused the daughter of an Ougien merchant, who having become opulent had gone and settled in Agra, which was then one of the largest and richest cities in India. Business matters had caused him afterwards to revisit that part of the country, and being excessively fond of his grandson, nothing would prevent him taking him back with him, under the pretext of improving his mind by the tuition of the able doctors of the place; although the real motive was a wish for his company.For a long time both father and mother held out against this proposal, but finding the grandfather equally pertinacious they at length agreed, provided he did not exceed a year, which was half the time demanded. This was yielded, and Alraschid set out in his sixteenth year for a place, which afterwards chiefly governed the complexion of his fortunes. The modern city of Agra is but a wreck, a shadow of what it was at the era of our story. It was then second only to Delhi in splendour and importance, and celebrated all over the eastern world for the number of its princely palaces and beautiful gar dens. Formerly the Jumna, a large and rapid tributary of the Ganges, divided it into nearly two equal parts, and its banks were for miles lined with the magnificent mansions of the powerful Omrahs and officers of state.

But now the city is almost circumscribed to a despica ble bazaar on the right bank of the river adjoining the celebrated fort.There is perhaps no place in Hindoostan which can afford more scope for a moralising traveller than Agra. He beholds the inanity of human ambition, the vast disparity betwixt man's power,—and his wishes and intentions, the general foolishness and feebleness of his race, depicted as in a panorama. With melancholy surprise he sees the impotence of the most powerful potentates with respect to the direction of empires or their institutions, when they themselves have sunk into the sleep of death.—He in short sees changes

as applicable to humanity in its every mode demonstrated.

Could any of the imperial houses of Timour rise from the grave, and see how their mightiness has crumbled— how their cities are turned into hamlets-their mosques and fortresses into ruins-and their kingdoms become the possessions of sordid and distant strangers,―strangers utterly in blood, language, and religion, and themselves subjects to a monarch barely entrusted with prerogative-how would their kingly pride be humbled!

The plains for miles around the present town are encumbered with shapeless masses of bricks, stones and mortar, the remnants of beautiful edifices; and here and there are the fading relics of some garden surrounded by its ruined wall, with perchance a high tastefully arched entrance, composed of hewn stone, and adorned with pieces of black and white marble cut very exactly, and inlaid in various devices. The produce of these enclosures consists only of a russet tinted grass, and so scanty, as to surprise one how the lazy buffaloes or famished looking sheep that have strayed there, can pick up a mouthful. A few goats may also occasionally be seen scrambling amongst the rubbish, and foraging in a manner much more jocund than well accords with the desolation of the scene. In the midst of all this dismal demolition, rise two equally celebrated fabrics. One is the famous Tajmahal, in which are entombed Shaw Jehan and his sultana; the other, the fort. Of the Taj, which rises like a phoenix from her ashes, and has justly been considered as the most exquisite epitome of costly and beautifully executed masonry in the world, we may hereafter speak; at present, however, we must pass on to the fort in which we are more interested.

It is no easy matter to convey on paper a correct idea of edifices perfectly different in appearance and style from any we have before seen, and which those who read never have, and such is the case with respect to the fort of Agra.-But let us imagine a wall of perhaps

fifty feet high, composed of a red smoothly polished stone, emerging from a deep moat, behind which towers another immensely lofty one, in some places above a hundred feet, its top being regularly divided by deep embrasures. Let us then imagine these two walls and moat enclosing several acres of ground, in the figure nearly of a parallelogram, covered with clusters of irregular buildings, spires and cupolas, and we have a general conception of its appearance. It is built close to the river, and the entrance on the north is defended by a drawbridge, over which are a number of complicated galleries, and ramparts in the form of a crescent, with its bend swelling outwards, capable of containing a considerable number of men. Passing the drawbridge, a wide pavement leads to the interior of the works with a gradual ascent, and a stranger is surprised on gaining the central space at which this path terminates, to find that the fort is a small eminence scarped and faced with masonry at one place, and surrounded on all others by the afore-mentioned lofty curtains from this unevenness of ground. The buildings are very irregular; there are several squares snugly seated in the hollows, to which many flights of stone steps and galleries lead from the ramparts above; and behind these in the remotest part of the works is the palace of Shaw Jehan.

This is an assemblage of elegant edifices adapted to the nature of the surface; and its general features are a small garden, surrounded on all sides by pretty high houses, excepting that next the river, which forms a broad terrace. Upon the terrace was then and still remains, an immense slab of black marble, where the Emperor of India was wont to sit of an evening, and meditate on his ruined fortunes. This court, as it may be called, contained all the different apartments customary to eastern royalty, and all of them have even now traces of their former magnificence. The hall of audience was minutely splendid, the walls being entirely inlaid with mosaic work in numerous patterns of leaves

and flowers. Many other chambers, more especially the treasurer's or Dewan's office, were thus decorated; but the most gorgeous of all were the baths.-These besides having all the expensive decorations of the other rooms were literally otherwise covered with gilding and mirror glass.-As with us, this glass was not disposed in single plates, but in minute pieces neatly fitted together, and in various figures.-It was sometimes a brilliant edging to golden flowers, and mosaics of blood stone and cornelian; and often in form of a diamond or crescent. Even the ceilings of the two chambers, of which the goselkannah consisted, were similarly inlaid, and the effect produced when lighted with lamps, as was usually the case when visited by Shaw Jehan, must have been indescribably grand and dazzling.

Were it not for fear of engrossing too much time, we might risk a longer and minuter description of what the fort then was. We might expatiate for several pages on the exquisitely beautiful chapel with its curious pavement portioned out in equal spaces for devotees, and astonish the fair reader by telling of that wonderful piece of ordinance which now lies immoveable in the river sands, but which then rested proudly on the ramparts. We must however proceed with what pertains more directly to our tale; otherwise Heaven knows when 'twill be told.

It was on one of those sickeningly sultry September evenings, that two young men were seated on the highest rampart of the fort nearest the Jumna, vainly longing for a freshening gust from the water to cool their throbbing veins.-The one who was of a strong, though not well proportioned make, was in a showy military dress, and his wide white silk trousers were gathered in so as to fit closely to his ancle, and display a foot not badly made, but done considerable injustice to, by an ungainly long pointed red shoe.-His waist was girt by a handsome crimson cashmere shawl, which supported a stiletto of curious manufacture; his turban was of muslin, and on