On the following morning we bade farewell to our hospitable friends, Sir John Malcolm and Mr. Wellesley, and bent our way towards Ougein by forced marches, to make up for the time we had spent at Mhow and Indore. The Bengal division did not return with us, but went the direct road to Saugar, where they arrived some days before us. In two days we reached Ougein, and encamped in a small tope of trees, about a mile from the city, which is situated on the banks of the river Scend, opposite to which are the beautiful and extensive gardens, once the favourite resort of Scindia, but which, of late years, he has not visited. The once splendid palace of this ancient city has been actually permitted to tumble to pieces, and this seat of oriental magnificence may now be said to be the habitation of snakes, scorpions, and every kind of reptiles. The beautiful pleasure-grounds are still kept in some kind of order, as they are the haunts of mendicant priests, who willingly sojourn here, and by whom these gardens are considered as a holy place of worship. In the morning the rippling stream of the Scend is crowded with these Brahmin priests, sanctifying their hoary heads, as they suppose, with the pure waters of this fair and sparkling stream, and offering worship to their gods. In the course of the afternoon we visited the old city, that had been buried by an earthquake. We could distinctly see tops of temples, trees, and houses, and there are still many wide and yawning excavations in the earth. At the extreme end of this old town stands the palace, in a state of dilapidation and decay. Some few priests reside in what was once the zenanah, the lower apartments of which run into the gliding stream of the Scend, and are washed by this beautiful river passing through them. Here we bathed, to the great annoyance and mortification of the priests who resided there, who did not fail to tell us in plain terms, that we had contaminated and polluted the sacred stream.