Near Agra there is a deserted city of palaces, called Futtehpore Sekri. We drove there one evening, when the moon shone clear and bright, and the air was cool and balmy. In five hours we reached the gates of this ancient place. There was no one to receive us, for there are no inhabitants. We took possession of Miriam’s palace, so stately, yet quite deserted. The moon shone on white marble walls, and the noise our servants made getting things ready for us re-echoed through the vast and empty corridors. During the night the sound of jackals’ hideous laughter was strange and uncanny, and the scream of some wild bird startled the listener; no one but visitors like ourselves had rested there for several hundred years, Futtehpore Sekri having been abandoned for that period. When the morning broke, we wandered about among massive ruins, and everything looked different in the glowing sunshine; but still no living being was to be seen, we were the sole inhabitants of the palaces. I cannot attempt to give more than an idea of the forsaken city. Ackbar was the founder of Futtehpore Sekri, and he built it with the full intention of making it the seat of government. His hall of judgment is a curious erection, consisting of a single apartment, with a massive pillar in its centre. He was throned on the summit, and on four cross beams branching out from the centre were seated his four principal ministers to administer laws to the world. There is the hide-and-seek palace, full of tortuous passages, where the ladies of the court amused themselves. In a court near this palace is Ackbar’s chess-board. The pavement is laid in squares of marble, and tradition says that the knights, bishops, and pawns were his queens. His durgah, or holy palace, is a magnificent structure, with its splendid mosque on one side, and on the other an enormous gate. In the durgah is the exquisite marble shrine of a holy man. The elephant gate, guarded by two monster elephants with intertwined trunks, has an uncommon effect. Beyond it is a tower, bristling with very good stone imitations of elephants’ tusks. From this tower Ackbar used to review his troops. We had our friend, the Assistant-Commissioner at Agra, with us, and he most kindly acted as cicerone, and told us what we were looking at. In all my wanderings I never saw anything more entrancing than this deserted city. The dry climate has not touched the red sandstone of which the palaces are built, and we could imagine its streets swarming with busy life, its edifices filled with the splendour of Ackbar’s magnificence. But the dream faded away, and left the reality of utter desolation.