"Certainly," he replied; "persons of your respectable appearance are always gladly admitted; if you will follow me, I will show you over the interior, which is worthy your inspection." We followed him, and passing through two gateways, which were defended by traverses so as to be impenetrable to invaders, we stopped under the third, and our conductor said, "The rooms above this are well worth seeing, if you will ascend." "Surely," said I, "we would willingly see everything." We ascended a narrow stair, which at the top opened into a small but beautiful suite of rooms, profusely adorned with enamel, far surpassing in its brilliancy of colours and minuteness of design any that we had before seen on the outside. Sentences of the Koran in white letters on a brilliant azure ground were all round the cornices, and the ceilings and walls were covered with flowers of every hue and design, their colours and the enamel in which they were worked being as fresh and bright as the day they were first painted. "These are imperishable," said I to my father; "would that the buildings which hold them could be so too, to remain to generations yet unborn a proof of the magnificence and wealth to which they owed their erection!" "Ay," said he, "there requires no better proof than these of the present degeneracy. The monarchs of those times were just and liberal as well as powerful: the wealth their dominions brought them was freely expended in beautifying their cities, and raising edifices by which they might be remembered. Now, with the same dominions, the wealth they bring is either uselessly hoarded or wastefully expended; now, no buildings arise as monuments of a dynasty, no armies rejoice in the presence of a brave and noble sovereign, and, stimulated by his example, win for him renown at the points of their bright swords. All now is mean and sordid, from the poor pensioned descendant of Shah Jhan and Alumgeer to the representative of the once proud Soobahs of the Dukhun." "Yes," said our conductor; "what is the use of now calling oneself a soldier, with scarcely bread to eat? The few of us who are in the fort wander about the ruins of the noble palaces and the deserted walls, and our only enemies are the panthers and hyænas, who have taken advantage of the yearly increasing jungle and desolation, and bid fair to expel us altogether. But look from the window, sirs; the open ground over which you came is called the Fatteh Mydan, the plain of victory. Here the proud monarchs of Beeder, first the Bhamunee and afterwards the Beereed dynasties, used to sit, while their gallant troops poured forth from the gates, and amused while they gratified their sovereign with feats of arms. And yonder," added he, taking us to another window,--"yonder are their tombs where their mortal remains rest, though their spirits are in the blessed paradise of our Prophet."