334 HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



sisted of little more than coarse grass, saplings, and] 

 brushwood. 



Next we came on land just recently brought under 

 cultivation, and here the prospect was even more 

 melancholy : scanty crops, or fresh ploughed land, 

 alternated with wide tracts of bare waste, and every- 

 where appeared the blackened stumps of the trees that 

 had been burnt when the forest was cleared away. Here 

 and there as we advanced we came on small villages, 

 but they consisted only of grass huts. We were all 

 glad when the march was accomplished, and we had 

 arrived at the Jumna. Our encamping-ground was. 

 that picturesque, half-ruined building known as the 

 " Badshah Mahal," or " Palace of the Emperor." The 

 tents were pitched in the courtyard ; the horses were 

 tethered, and the carts and bullocks stationed just 

 outside. 



The " Badshah Mahal " is a building little known 

 even in India. Its history is romantic. It may interest 

 the reader if I relate it. 



The palace, according to tradition, was erected more 

 than two and a half centuries ago by the Emperor Shah 

 Jeahn, the same emperor who erected that most ex- 

 quisite of structures, the Taj, at Agra. The Emperor 

 had transferred his capital from Agra to Delhi. There 

 he founded a new city. A canal had in former days 

 conducted the water of the Jumna from the point 

 where it issues from the Shewalic to the Delhi of that 

 earlier period. The canal had long gone to ruin ; the 

 Emperor had it restored. When the works at the 

 head of the canal were completed, the Emperor came 



