1 847- J Account of the Town and Pa/arc of Feerosabad. 971 



Some Account of the Town and Palace ofFeerozabad, in the vicinity of 

 Dehli, with Introductory Remarks on the sites of other Towns. By 

 Henry Cope, Secretary Archaeological Society of Dehli, and 

 Henry Lewis, Deputy Commissary of Ordnance and Member of 

 the Society.* 



In no country of the world, or at least in no country with whose 

 history we are sufficiently acquainted to pronounce authoritatively, are 

 there so many monuments of the inordinate vanity of a race of foreign 

 conquerors as in India ;j and in no part of this vast empire has that 

 vanity been more pre-eminently displayed than in the immediate vici- 

 nity of the modern town of Shahjehanabad, the last, and probably, the 

 greatest specimen of the vain-glorious spirit of its founder, certainly 

 that to which has been secured a more lengthened existence than was 

 enjoyed by any of the towns and citadels that went before. These were 

 at times the capitals of nearly all India, at others merely the chief 

 cities of a territory smaller than many zumeendarees of the present 

 day, yet all are spoken of by the host of historians who have written 

 about them, as the glory and pride of the land ; the centre of civiliza- 

 tion, and in turn the scenes of the most mighty revolutions which 

 have befallen the mightiest empire in the world. At one time we 

 have the Prince in power, or the founder of a new dynasty, seeking 

 the highest available hill (as in the case of Prithu Raj's palace and 

 Toglukabad) whereon to erect his castle, if not his town, as the site 

 best suited for defence ; at another selecting the plains at the foot of 

 those hills, (as Jehanpunnah, and old Dehli,) or the banks of the 

 River Jumna, (as an Kelokheree, Mobarikabad and Feerozabad,) on 

 which to locate himself on account may be of their superior advantages 

 in regard to the vast amount of supplies required for such an im- 

 mense population ; but almost every one of them was actuated by the 

 same all-predominant feeling of pride, all seemed anxious to hand their 

 names down to posterity as the founders of new cities, while some 



* Read before the Archaeological Society of Dehli, at their meeting of the 9th August, 

 and communicated by that Society. 



t The British are specially excluded from this remark, were they to leave India at t lie 

 present moment, they would leave every little behind them of an architectural character 

 thai would stand the ravages of thirty years. — H. C. — H, L. 



6 K 



