Our last recollections of Hyderabad are brilliant. Sir Salar Jung gave a magnificent evening _fête_, which was like a scene in the "Arabian Nights." One of the large courts of the palace is a quadrangle, the centre of which is occupied by a huge basin of water as big as a small lake full of fountains. The _salámliks_ all open out into it with flights of marble stairs. The starlight was above us, and a blaze of wax lights and chandeliers lit up every hall, and coloured lamps and flowers spangled the whole centre. The company consisted of the Nizam's Court and Ministers, and about thirty-six picked Europeans. It began by a _Nach_; then a beautiful dinner of about fifty-six covers was served in the principal _salámlik_ by retainers in wild picturesque costumes. The band played; we afterwards walked about and conversed, and were presented with attar of roses. We were very sorry to be obliged to leave before we could accept an invitation from the Nizam's 3rd Lancers to witness their _Holee Tamasha_ in their lines at Assuf Nagur, which answers very much to our Carnival, but the day after this we were bound to go to Secunderabad, a prosperous European station with three regiments, which, however, is not the least interesting. BACK TO BOMBAY. [Sidenote: _Towers of Silence_.] The Towers of Silence, or Parsee charnel-house, the burying-place of the Fire Worshippers, one should not omit to see. Ascend a giant staircase overhung by palms and tropical vegetation to a large garden on a hill summit. On the way you pass a clock, and a hand points to the following notice: "None but Parsees enter here." This is one of the four splendid views of Bombay; the other three are from Kumballa Hill, Mazagon Hill, and Parel Hill. The palms immediately around us are thick with myriads of large black vultures, gorged with small-pox and cholera corpses. The air is heavy with their breath; they breathe and exhale what they feed upon; they fatten upon what bare contact with would kill us, and they cluster in thousands.