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other Europeans, who have usually been obliged to construct such defences for their factories. Many if not most of these are in a ruinous condition, and it is only at the three presidencies that you will see them on a very extensive scale and carefully kept up. The inland forts I am less able to speak of, but I believe some of them to possess considerable strength against any native force, though few, excepting those whose natural situations are strong*, could resist a regular attack from European troops. Among these the mud forts are probably the best calcu lated for resistance, as the substance of which they are built being kneaded clay, possesses a tenuity which deadens the effect of shot and renders it difficult to effect a breach.

But you will think I am straying out of my proper province and trenching upon yours, and, to say the truth, the useful and exact lines of a fortress have in general few charms for a lady's eyes, however she may delight in the more showy structure of palaces and temples. There

* Such as the fortress of Dowlat-abad, which stands on the summit of a high insulated rock. It is surrounded by a ditch I am told fifty feet wide, and the rock is scarped to an astonishing height. Across this ditch a narrow bridge leads to an aperture in the rock, by which you enter a winding passage cut in the hill, the egress of which is defended by a grating of metal, which is let down at pleasure, and thus renders the place completely inaccessible.

fore I will take leave in time, and beg you to believe me as ever, &c.

LETTER V.

IN mentioning the fine arts as they once flourished in Hindostan, I ought not to have omitted Calligraphy, which, in a country where printing is unknown, becomes really an art, of no trifling importance. Accordingly we find in the East, where the means of multiplying books by printing have not yet superseded the pen of the scribe, the most beautiful and correct manuscripts often enriched with costly illuminations and gilding. Though paper be now pretty generally used to write on in India, and that of a very smooth and even kind, yet the more ancient methods still prevail in some districts. One of these which is most frequently practised is writing upon the leaf of the palmyra with an iron style; so that you see people going about with their little bundle of leaves in appearance like a large fan, tied up between two bits of wood cut to fit them, either as ledgers and billbooks, or the legendary tales of their country, or the holy texts of their shastras, which may possibly have been originally written with the same materials. Another kind of writing of

which you will see a particular account in Wilks's excellent History of the South of India, is the Cudduttum, Curruttum, or Currut. It is a strip of cotton cloth covered on both sides with a mixture of paste and charcoal. The writing is done with a pencil of lapis ollaris, called Balapum, and may be rubbed out like that on a slate; the cloth is folded in leaves like a pocket-map, and tied up between thin boards painted and ornamented. This mode of writing was anciently used for records and other public papers, and in some parts of the country is still employed by merchants and shopkeepers. It is very durable, indeed probably more so, than either paper, parchment, or the palm leaf. Col. Wilks supposes it to be the linen or cotton cloth on which Arrian states that the Indians wrote.

Many grants of land and other public documents have been discovered engraved on copperplates, a number of which are frequently fastened together with a ring and seal, and numerous inscriptions on stone are met with on the sites of most ancient towns and places of worship.

The writing on paper and parchment is performed with a reed shaped nearly like our common pens; the ink in substance and colour resembles a thick solution of the common Indian ink, but the writing is often traced in various

colours, such as red and azure, or occasionally

with gold.

The character in which the Sanscrit is written is called Deva Nagari, the etymology of which name does not seem determined, excepting that the first part of it proclaims its holiness*. It is written from the left to the right-hand like our own, and has a square appearance as if a line were drawn on the top of each word. You will see some beautiful manuscripts in the museum of the India-House, especially one of extraordinary length, illuminated and embellished with pictures of the gods of the Hindû Mythology, which is most delicately written upon very fine parchment.

Among other substances used for writing upon, there is a very precious, because very scarce, kind of yellow parchment, made of the skin of the hogdeer, which is used on occasions of ceremony, when the writing is commonly coloured and gilt.

Although it be generally understood that learning in all its branches is interdicted to the lower castes of the Hindûs, this ought only to be understood of such parts as are contained in the sacred books, the Vedas, Vedangas and sacred poems. But there are many treatises

* It is supposed by some. to have taken its name of Nagari, from the city where it is said to have been invented; but this is doubtful.

written expressly for the use of the lower peo ple, and in case they do not find occupation in their own callings they are permitted to have recourse to any other, excepting the reading and teaching the Vedas, among which writing is enumerated, and in so populous a country where literature had become a luxury, we may be sure that very many hands must have been employed in administering to that luxury. We may suppose without any great stretch of imagination, that the lords and ladies of king Vicrama's court would, after the representation of Sacontala, be eager to read so charming a production, and the ornamented and perfumed manuscript would eagerly be offered to her, whose dark eyes emulated those of the interesting princess, and the hope of recommending himself to favour and wealth would incite the writer to excel his competitors, till the perfection of the art itself became a primary object.

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We have often smiled at the naive account which Froissart gives of presenting his rich manuscript to his patron, and I cannot suppose that the Indian poet was less eager for distinction than the western chronicler, or that the Hindoo monarch would with less complacency receive the legends of his heaven-descended ancestors, than the Count de Foix did those of his own contemporaries.

The warriors of Hindostan whose family Barts