Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume III.).djvu/388

346 abundant in objects of natural beauty or curiosity, the prospect offering little else than an uniform plain of slovenly cultivation, yet in the character and manners of the people there is much which may be studied with interest and amusement, and in the yet remaining specimen of Oriental pomp at Lucknow, in the decayed, but most striking and romantic, magnificence of Delhi, and in the Taje-Mahal of Agra, (doubtless one of the most beautiful buildings in the world) there is almost enough, even of themselves, to make it worth a man’s while to cross the Atlantic and Indian oceans.

Since then I have been in countries of a wilder character, comparatively seldom trodden by Europeans, exempt during the greater part of their history from the Mussulman yoke, and retaining, accordingly, a great deal of the simplicity of early Hindoo manners, without much of that solenm and pompous uniformity which the conquests of the house of Timur seem to have impressed on all classes of their subjects. Yet here there is much which is interesting and curious. The people, who are admirably described (though I think in too favourable colours) by in his Central India, are certainly a lively, animated and warlike race of men, though, chiefly from their wretched government, and partly from their still more wretched religion, there is hardly any vice either of slaves or robbers to which they do not seem addicted. Yet such a state of society is, at least, curious, and resembles more the picture of Abyssinia, as given by Bruce, than that of any other