184 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL, 
barber, or of a successful cook, was often held aloft^ 
for the admiration of future generations, by the 
erection of an elegant mausoleum. 
Pursuing the road which runs under the walls of* 
Golkonda from Hydrabad, the traveller, advancing 
in a north-westerly direction, is beguiled by some 
of the finest scenery of the Dekkan, until, having 
traversed about seventy miles, each stage increasing 
in picturesque beauty, he finds himself upon the 
summit of a bold table-land, overlooking the magni- 
ficent and renowned city of Bidur, which lies spread 
out before him, distant about a Teds . The scene is 
truly grand. The city itself, with its countless sky- 
piercing minarets and solemn domes, enclosed within 
a girt of dark embattled walls, covers a slight 
eminence in the centre of the picture. On the right, 
shrouded by a thick grove of wide-branching mango 
trees, is a cluster of princely-looking tombs, those 
of the ancestors of the present Nizam of Hydrabad ; 
and on the left is the venerable ruin of the Madressa 
or College. Beyond the city, upon the plain, about 
a mile distant from the western gate, are to be seen 
the lofty cupolas which crown the splendid mauso- 
leums of the Bereed dynasties of the ancient kings of 
Bidur. And, to close the picture, a fine well-culti- 
vated champaign country, adorned with gigantic 
forest-trees, in endless variety, and watered by a 
