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language in the sacred page, promising sublime and spiritual joys 

 under allusions from these subjects in oriental palaces ! In the 

 prophetical books of the Old Testament it is said, " I will make 

 thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy 

 borders of pleasant stones." In the figurative descriptions of the 

 New Testament we find the same ideas: " Her li°ht was like unto 







a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal: 

 the wall was of jasper, and the foundations were garnished with 

 the sapphire, the emerald, the chalcedony, the sardonyx, the chry- 

 solite, the beryl, the topaz, the amethyst, and all manner of pre- 

 cious stones." 



From Petwah we travelled over a tract of land, once filled with 

 crowded streets and populous mansions, now a cultivated plain, 

 covered with trees and verdure, unless where a falling mosque or 

 mouldering palace reminded us of its former state. These ruins 

 increased as we drew nearer the city, until at length we travelled 

 through acres of desolation. An universal silence reigned; nothing 

 indicated our approach to a capital, nor did we meet with " one 

 sad historian of the mournful plain," without the gates of Alme- 

 dabad! 



Et seges est ubi Troja fuit. Ovid. 



or rather let me quote a similar scene in the expressive language 

 of the prophetical writings, of a city still more magnificent than 

 either Troy or the capital of Guzerat, that it should become a heap 

 of ruins, a dwelling- place for dragons, an astonishment and a hiss- 

 ing, without an inhabitant; the wild beasts of the desert should be 

 there, and the houses full of doleful creatures ; the owls should 



