Cattle for our baggage and camp equipage having been collected here by previous arrangement, we left our servants to follow with them, and at half-past three set out for Shikárpúr in a buggy kindly placed at our service by Captain Hampton, Superintendent of the Panjab Steam Flotilla. At Mangráni, the half-way stage, we mounted camels sent out for us, and in four hours from Sakkar, arrived at Shikárpúr. The road is excellent throughout, and laid most of the way with long reed grass to keep down the dust. The country is flat, crossed by many irrigation canals, and covered with jangal patches of tamarisk and mimosa. In the last five miles from Lakkí to Shikárpúr, cultivation is general, and large trees become more abundant. In the morning our obliging host, Colonel Dunsterville, Collector of Shikárpúr, took us for a drive to see the place. In the public gardens called Shákí Bágh is a small menagerie and the Merewether pavilion. The latter, built after the design of those useless decorated structures one sees at English watering-places and pleasure gardens, is a striking object, absurdly at variance with all its surroundings. But it is characteristic of our prejudices and tastes in matters architectural. We unaccountably neglect the encouragement of the oriental architecture, with its elegant designs, elaborate detail, and durable material, for the nondescript compositions, incongruous mixture of colours, and inferior material of the public buildings and monuments we have spread all over the country. We seem to forget that what is suitable to the climate, conformable to the scenery, and acceptable to the tastes of the people of Europe, may be the reverse in each instance when introduced into this country without modification or adaptation to its circumstances. The town of Shikárpúr is clean for an oriental city, and wears an air of quiet and prosperity. The environs are well stocked with large trees, such as the _ním_ (melia azadirachta), _sirras_ (acaciaelata), _sissú_ (Dalbergia sissoo), palm, &c., and the roads are everywhere covered with a layer of reeds to keep down the dust. The people are clad in bright-coloured garments, and appear a very thriving commercial community. The bazaar is covered with a pent-roof, and has a cool look, which alone must be a boon in this hot climate. There is a very useful charitable dispensary here, and a jail for five hundred prisoners. I observed that the convicts were clad in fur jackets (_postín_), a luxury very few of them ever possessed in their free state.