1837.] Observations upon Oujeiri. 813 



II. — Observations upon the past and present condition of Oujein or 

 Ujjayani. By Lieutenant Edward Conolly, 6th Light Cavalry. 

 Having lately had an opportunity of paying a visit to this ancient 

 city, where t endeavoured, as far as a few days would allow, to explore 

 the various buildings and temples within its precincts, collecting 

 specimens, papers, antique coins, and inquiring into points of history 

 and superstition, it has occurred to me that I may be able to add some- 

 thing to the hitherto meagre and faulty descriptions published of this 

 celebrated place. 



European visitors to Oujein generally first hasten to the water- 

 palace. In my survey of the town and its environs therefore this will 

 be a convenient spot from which to begin my observations*. 



Five miles north of the city, the Sipra running due north separates 

 into two channels, and surrounds an oval-shaped rocky eminence of 

 about five or six hundred yards in circumference. The island thus form- 

 ed, which a now dilapidated wall encloses, is crowned with a clumsy, 

 rudely fashioned palace, the architect of which preferred solidity to 

 elegance ; for the rough blocks of trap composing the walls have no 

 carving or ornament save where some isolated stone shews, by its 

 sculptured figures, that it once adorned a more ancient edificef. 



Two solid bridges, at either extremity of the island connect it with 

 the left bank of the river. The one to the north where the bed of the 

 stream is more narrow and the rush of the water more violent, has with 

 the exception of one or two tottering arches been swept away. The 

 other seems to defy time and the elements. From this last the water 

 works commence. The floor of every arch has been faced with ma- 

 sonry and a narrow canal, cut into the centre of each, alone affords 

 a passage for the water in the dry weather. The bed of the left stream 

 (its whole breadth) for more than a hundred yards to the north of the 

 bridge, has been similarly levelled and chunamed. The water, 

 stealing gently through narrow and sometimes fancifully shaped con- 

 duits, feeds in its course numerous square tanks, shivers over carved 

 purdahs a yard high, and at length united in a larger reservoir, turn- 



* Hunter notices this place, As. Res. vol. VI, Forbes devotes a few lines to 

 it. Sir W. Malet published a paper upon Kaliya deh in the Oriental Repository, 

 a work I have not been able to procure. 



f For the palace see Hunter ; — a few of the doorways and cornices are how- 

 ever faced with less common material. I noticed a reddish -brown porphyry, 

 (Spec. 1,) a yellowish-brown porphyry tic sandstone, (Spec. 2,) a spotted do. 

 (Spec. 3.,) and a handsome red stone, old red sandstone, (Spec. 4.,) all these I was 

 told are from llampoora. (The numbers refer to specimens forwarded.) 

 5 L 



