276 
J. F. Fanthome —A Forgotten Oity. 
[No. 3, 
A Forgotten City.—By J. F. Fanthome. 
[Read May, 1904.] 
History makes mention of many cities, only the names of which 
have survived through the lapse of ages, but their sites are unknown. 
Madain, the capital of the celebrated Nusherwan, is one. By some it 
is identified with the modern Hamadan in Persia, by others as the 
present Qandahar in Afghanistan; others again trace it to a town of a 
similar name which Sale, the translator of the Quran, places in the 
south of Arabia, and calls it Madian. The exact geography or location 
of the city is therefore unknown. 
That these cities which flourished for indefinite periods, should 
have perished leaving scarcely any memorial of themselves upon the 
records of time, is hardly to be credited than that a city founded by a 
powerful monarch for his pleasure should have come into existence, 
flourished, decayed, and swept off the earth as it were, within 
the short space of three decades, is a phenomenon in history which 
cannot fail to strike the imagination or to point the moral in regard to 
the transitory nature of things human. Such a city, however, sprung 
up during the early days of the great Akbar’s reign, and ended its 
brief duration even before that monarch had closed his by-no-means 
short reign of fifty-one years. I refer to the town of NAG ARC AIN, 
a name not to be found, as far as I am aware, in contemporary annals 
except two, nor in any of the chronicles of the subsequent period of 
Mughal domination. 
After Akbar had been seated on the throne nine years, his his¬ 
torian informs us, he caused a city to be built within easy distance of 
his capital, Agra, upon a plain which lies due south of the present city 
of that name. This city which he named Nagarcain, he intended for 
a resting-place, as the name imports, or a “ camping-ground ” for the 
Imperial cavalcade. To it he retired frequently for “ rest for re¬ 
creation from the cares of Government—and spent the time in hunting 
and hawking, in playing caugan or polo, and in witnessing races and 
