Virtue, immortal plant, ye will blossom, ’tis true, in heaven, but must ye here be ever rooted in sorrow and watered with tears? Oh! for some mighty intellect, some second Newton, to call order out of chaos, light out of darkness; to hush the Babel of discordant tongues, and give to religious and moral truth that clear, convincing, and commanding aspect which shall for ever abash the various forms of perplexity and error. The awakening mind of the world demands something like unity and certainty, and will have them if they are to be had. But to proceed. One of the finest buildings in Delhi is the Jumma Musjid, the principal mosque of the place. It has three nobly-proportioned domes; also two lofty and magnificent minarets, which I have often ascended, and enjoyed from their summits a noble prospect of the city and surrounding country. From this height you look down on the flat roofs of the houses, and on a fine evening may observe the inhabitants seated on them, and enjoying their favourite, though somewhat childish amusements, of flying paper kites and pigeons. The pigeons, of which the Hindoostanees are great fanciers, and possess a vast variety, are trained to join other flocks in their aerial excursions, and then, by separating from them with great velocity, to carry off some of those with which they were commingled; these they bring back in triumph to their bamboo stands, at the call or whistle of their owners. At one extremity of the city lies the British residency, always the scene of hospitable doings, but particularly so during the period to which I am referring. The Resident at that time was a gentleman who, with first-rate talents and solid virtues, combined those social qualities which at once command what it is often difficult to unite—the love and respect of all. Nothing could be more agreeable than the residency parties, and on what were called “public days,” invitations were extended to every one in the shape of an European; old Mahratta officers, Portuguese, French, and half-caste merchants, and others without the pale of the regular service, and not constituting an ordinary portion of the society, would swell the _levée_ on such occasions. Punning, as a practice or habit, is the greatest of bores, and deserves almost all that Johnson and others have said against it; I say “almost,” for I do not go the full length of that alliterative curmudgeon, when he says, “He who would make a pun would pick a pocket.” Had this been true, many an accomplished Barrington would the residency of Delhi have turned out at this period, with their distinguished chief at their head.