60 HINDOOSTAN. 



subject to continual fluctuation ; but I understand generally that it ex= 

 tends more than 40 miles beyond the city of Aurungabad, westwards > 

 and comes within 80 miles of the city of Poonah. His capital is Hydra- 

 bad, or Bagnagur, situated on the Moussi river. 



The rajah of Mysore, the descendant of the rajah who was dispos- 

 sessed by the usurper Hyder Ali, has, since the fall of Tippoo Sul- 

 tan, been restored to the sovereignty of a great part of the Mysore 

 under the protection of the British. Most of the other rajahs are de- 

 pendent on some of the other great powers. One of the most wealthy 

 and powerful of these rajahs is the Jyepoor rajah, the head of the 

 rajpoots in Agimere, who is tributary to the Mahrattas, and, who, per- 

 haps,- is the prince most capable of effectually resisting their over- 

 grown power,. were he not of an inactive and effeminate character. 



The north-western provinces of Hindoostan are possessed by the 

 Abdallees and the Seiks. The Abdallees, also called Duranees, from 

 the custom of wearing a pearl in one of their ears, are properly a sect 

 or tribe of Afghans, or the inhabitants of the mountainous country in 

 the north and west of Hindoostan, but the name seems to be applied 

 to the Afghans in general. They possess a territory stretching from 

 the mountains of Tartary to the Arabian Sea, and from the Indus to 

 the confines of Persia. They are a robust hardy race of men ; and 

 being generally addicted to a state of predatory warfare, their man- 

 ners largely partake of a barbarous insolence, and they avow a fixed 

 contempt for the occupations of civil life. The principal cities of 

 Afghanistan are Candahar and Cabul, the former of which was the 

 capital ; but the late and present sultans have kept their court at Ca- 

 bul. About the year 1720 an army of Afghans invaded Persia, took 

 Ispahan, and made the Shah Hussein prisoner. They kept posses- 

 sion of Ispahan and the southern provinces for ten years, when they 

 were defeated in several battles, and driven out of the country, by 

 Nadir Kuli, commonly known in Europe by the name of Kouli Khan, 

 After Nadir had deposed his sovereign Shah Thamas, he besieged and 

 took Candahar ; but afterwards received a considerable body of the 

 Afghans into his service, who became his favourite foreign troops. 

 On his assassination in 1747, Abdalli Ahmed Khan, the general of 

 the Afghan troops, though furiously attacked by the whole Persian 

 army, effected a safe retreat into his own country, where he caused 

 himself to be acknowledged sovereign of '.he Afghan territories, by 

 the title of Ahmed Shah. He was succeeded in 1773, by his son Ti- 

 mur Shah, and he by Zemaun Shah, the present sultan. 



The Seiks are a powerful nation, consisting of several small inde- 

 pendent states, connected by a kind of federal union. They possess 

 the whole of Lahore, the principal part of Moultan, and the west part 

 of Delhi. This tract extends 400 miles from north-west to south- 

 east, and is from 150 to 200 broad ; though the part between Attock 

 and Behker cannot be less than 320. The founder of their sect was 

 named Nanock, and lived in the beginning of the sixteenth century. 

 They are the descendants of his disciples ; the word seiks, in the 

 Sanscrit language, signifying disciples. Their army consists almost 

 entirely of horse, of which it is supposed they can bring 200,000 in- 

 to the field. The Seiks are now become one of the most powerful 

 states of Hindoostan. Their capital is Lahore. 



Mountains... .The chief mountains of Hindoostan are those of the 

 northern chain, which separate this country from Tibet, and are 



led bv the natives Himmala. or the mountains of snow, with which 



