34 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
bones, and fractured her skull, the poor child uttered 
one piercing shriek and expired.” 
General and particular accounts both of ancient 
and modern Delhi are to be found in about nine out 
of every ten Oriental works, whether of history or of 
personal narrative ; I shall, therefore, confine my 
local descriptions to those scenes which form the 
immediate subjects of the accompanying plates. Not 
the city only, but the whole country round about 
it, would appear to be an inexhaustible mine of anti- 
quarian treasure ; and whether the traveller visits it for 
the first or for the ninety-ninth time, he may find a 
thousand novelties to delight him, and entice him to 
a protracted sojourn ; if only his love of the truly 
sublime and beautiful be superior to the extremes of 
heat, dust, noise, insects, and evil odours. Elves 
and demons may alike find fitting haunts in Delhi. 
Among its scattered piles of arched palaces, its 
pillared courts, out-topped with tapering minarets 
and shining domes, its heaps of blackened tombs, 
its prostrate towers, and opening vaults, fantastical 
romance and brooding mystery, have each their 
proper homes. Erewhile 
I took it for a fairy region 
Of some gay creatures of the element, 
That in the colours of the rainbow live, 
And play i’ th’ plighted clouds ; 
and now, though not a passing shadow has fallen to 
