BABER. 
207 
represented in the print. It is in a commanding 
situation, standing upon a slight elevation, which 
raises it above the surrounding plain. From its 
broken but massy walls a perfect view is obtained 
of Shahjehanabad, or modern Delhi. For a consider- 
able distance to the south-west and north of this 
metropolis (now how sadly fallen from its once high 
estate !) there are many architectural fragments of a 
distinguished order of beauty, and a great number 
of monumental buildings in a very good state of 
preservation, many of those mausoleums having been 
erected probably upwards of five hundred years, or 
even so far back as the time of Mahmood of Ghizny, 
who entered Hindostan in the beginning of the eleventh 
century. 
Between the ruins upon the foreground of the 
engraving and Shahjehanabad there are several of a 
description precisely similar, being no doubt portions 
of the palaces of wealthy omrahs, or persons holding 
distinguished offices at the court of the Mohammedan 
princes. Some of these remains have suffered more 
from ill usage than from decay, superstition having at 
various times left the marks of its blind and bigoted 
fury upon them. Many of those edifices appear to 
have been constructed as places of defence as well as 
of residence, as the Afghan chieftains were in a con- 
stant state of civil and foreign warfare. The ce- 
ment used in their construction is as hard as the 
stone which it unites, it being scarcely possible to 
separate the masses thus joined with a nicety un- 
known to European builders. Groups of natives, 
armed with bows and arrows, matchlocks and shields. 
