STATE OF KHYRPOOR. 165 



ficiently numerous to get on very rapidly 

 with the work, and at their then rate of pro- 

 gress it will take two or three years to 

 clear away the ruins that afford shelter to 

 all kinds of vermin and obstruct the free 

 passage of air. The shrubs too would flourish 

 without water, and if attended to, might, by 

 the production of gum, be made to repay the 

 care bestowed on them ; but at any rate they 

 would be more sightly than ruinous walls 

 and hollows containing stagnant water, swarm- 

 ing with musquitoes, and exhaling vile smells. 

 Such was the state in which I found Khyr- 

 poor, and the squalid looks of the people 

 who reside in the vicinity of those spots tes- 

 tified to the malaria that prevailed there. 



Meer Ali Moorad himself, I believe, dislikes 

 Khyrpoor, some say from one cause, some 

 from another, but I think that this feeling may 

 arise from its being the scene of his early 

 troubles. His Highness was the favourite son 

 of an aged father, who lost his life by an ac- 

 cident, and then the orphan, if report speaks 

 truth, was harshly treated by uncles who de- 

 sired his inheritance. Meer Roostum was then 

 verging on dotage, and notoriously addicted to 



