60 



serais, and large towns and villages, mostly on eminences, which*, 

 as the country is entirely a plain, were most probably Formed by 

 the succession of buildings and ruins for ages past, on the same 

 spot. The road is infested by tribes of banditti called googurs 

 and mewalties; but a light escort of fifty cavalry was a sufficient 

 protection from insult. The infantry and heavy baggage were left 

 at the encampment near Muttra. The soil between Agra and 

 Delhi is uniformly sandy, entirely covered with a wild shrub 

 called conkra, bearing a flower resembling the ranunculus, suc- 

 ceeded by a pod, which opening when ripe, scatters abroad a kind 

 of silky cotton, containing the seed, which overruns the country. 

 The lactaceous juice of the whole plant is used externally by the 

 natives, as a remedy against bruises and sprains. "What is thought 

 remarkable in this part of Ilindostan, and would hardly be cre- 

 dited by an inhabitant of Guzerat, is, that the whole of this sandy 

 plain, when in a state of culture, produced abundant crops of 

 excellent wheat. 



Handsome brick minarets of a considerable height, instead of 

 stones, as in Europe, mark the distance from Agra to Delhi, many 

 of them in very good repair; but the road having in course of 

 time, and by the prostration of property, been much altered, they 

 are in many places a great way from the present road. They 

 seem to be regulated by the jerceby measurement, of twenty -five 

 guz to one jereeb, and two hundred jereebs to one coss. The 

 rismi coss, which is the general rule of computing distance, falls 

 considerably short of this measure. The distance from Sindia's 

 encampment to Delhi is fifty-eight rismi coss; about eight.y-sev.ea. 

 English miles. 



