The tombs are the prettiest toys in the world; the material is the waxlike Jaypur marble. They look as if carved in ivory, some Giant's Dieppe, ready to be placed under a glass case; the fretted and open work is lovely lacery in stone, and the sharp shadows of the dark green trees set off their snowy whiteness. Golconda is the first and the most famous of the six independent Moslem kingdoms, which, in A.D. 1399, rose on the extinction of the Toghlak Delhi dynasty, and it survived till 1688, when Aurungzeb brought all India under one sceptre. In it is the state prison in which the sons of the Nizam _used_ to be confined. We found all the works which we had read upon it very unsatisfying, but we read the "French in India" (London, Longmans, 1868) with pleasure and profit. The four white domes denote the Tombs of the Kings, are visible from most parts of Hyderabad, and form the main body of a line here scattered, there grouped, which begins immediately beyond the faubourgs, and runs up the left side of the river valley. THE MAIN BUILDING OF GOLCONDA. Each _burj_ carries from one to three guns. The defences are strong towards the east, and on the south they are doubled. There is a glacis, a moat, and a covered way. The mixture of oasis and desert is truly Arabian; Arab also are the pigeon-holes and dove-cotes of the walls, while the song of the water-wheel reminded us of Egypt and Syria. The throne-hall towers over the river valley, and the double lines of defence show to the best advantage. We were only allowed to view the town from the outside, but we could see all this as it is hilly. The throne-hall, with arched windows, the king's palace and defences, occupy the hill. The town on the flat ground is surrounded by walls, battlements, curtained bastions, and towers thrown out, and reminds one of Old Damascus and Jerusalem, and in it dwells many an old feudal Chief. Past those walls, no European or Christian has ever been allowed; at least, at the time I wrote. The Tombs of the Kings are very ancient, are outside the town, and to those we were admitted, and they reminded us of the tower-tombs of Palmyra.