Most of the towns and villages of that country are placed under hills, or are concealed among the trees;— they are surrounded by strong walls, in which many apartments and houses are built, and also in the enclosed space, and they are secured by a deep ditch dug all round,— this is to protect their houses, for in the dark nights the elephants frequently make an attack on their villages and plunder and destroy them;— this, therefore, preserves the inhabitants and their property in safety. The men are mostly of a brown complexion, or the colour of wheat, but some are black— they are tall in stature; their clothing consist in a very dirty shirt, double, reach­ing from the neck to the ancles, and until this shirt is worn to rags, they never think of changing it:— they use a handkerchief, black or white, tied round their loins, and wear a leathern cap on their heads. The soldiers, however, never stir out of their houses or towns without a matchlock with the match lighted in their hands, and a broad knife which they call kurkutti, fastened round their waists. The women are beautiful, and in bloom and delicacy, the envy of the beauties of China and Choghul, and in elegance of form and gait, silvery complexions, and loveliness of feature, they rival the maids of Turkistán and Persia. In that wild country, which is how­ever, beautiful as the garden of Paradise, they move about gracefully as the divine Hooris,— they, how­ever, are very ill and indelicately clothed,— one cloth about ten or twelve feet long, is wound round them, reaching from the navel to the knee, and a white handkerchief about three feet square is thrown on their tender breasts, the treasury of love. This dress destroys the effect of their beauty. The men of this country are cold, and passionless, in regard to women; but the women on the contrary are eager and ardent in their intercourse with men. Historians of old relate that formerly in the neigh­bourhood of Akrubnar, (Nar, or rather Nad* in the language of that country, signifying a town), it was a foolish custom, but one considered in their pagan religion both proper and meritorious, that if there happened to be four brothers in one house, one only of them married, and the others cohabited with the woman so married by turns, one every night, and some even say, that all four remained with her every night,*— the offspring of these marriages were divided among the brethren.

When, however, the deceased Nawáb (Hydur) conquered this country, he abolished this abomi­nable custom, and seizing many of the women, he gave them to his own soldiers.

But to return,— a description of the cold here makes the pen before it begins to write, stiff, as if it were plunged into the frozen sea,— and the tongue of truth at describing the temperature is with fear and astonishment congealed like ice, not­withstanding it is covered with the posteen of the lips,* what can it say therefore. The sun with all its heat fearing the influence of the cold, every day covers his head with a counterpane of clouds and hurries away-from this country:*— the fast travel­ling moon also every night from a similar fear hides her face in the blue veil of the heavens. This, however which has been written, is the description of the summer. God protect us from the winter and rainy seasons,— for during six months in the year, the clouds of Azur (the ninth month,) pour their showers over the whole of that country, and the earth like the eyes of the oppressed, is filled with water, and from the evening, until two hours of the day have arisen, (seven or eight o’clock in the morning), the vapours of the falling dew, like the sighs of the afflicted, cover hill and dale, and many straight well made active young men from the violence of the cold having lost the warmth or use of their limbs, sleep in their narrow huts like a bow with their feet and breasts doubled up together. For six months the labourers or cultivators of the soil of that country, covered from head to foot with an old cloth or blanket, work for nine or ten hours a day, but all this time they are subject to the bites of leeches which are produced from the roots of the trees by excessive rain, and remain among the leaves and branches, and these in number, like locusts thirsting for blood, rise and fix themselves on the bodies of men and cattle to their great injury, and never quit them until they are filled with their blood;— besides these, there are an infinite number of serpents of all kinds, and the most poisonous scorpions, and if these bite any living creature, its life quits the body so instantly, that even the Angel of Death is not prepared to receive it.

But to proceed:— when the pious Sultán entered that Jungulistán or country of forests, by the route of the Turkul Ghaut, he encamped on this side the gate of the stockade, called Mundul. The next day he gave orders to his two Sipahdárs with their Kushoons to assault the stockade gate, before which the infidels had dug a deep ditch and had built a wall on each flank, and from these with their arrows and matchlocks they completely blocked up the road:— they accordingly com­menced the action, but on this day the infidels dis­played the utmost intrepidity and not only repelled their assaults, but drove the two Kushoons before them and killed and wounded the greatest part.

The conquering Sultán however with his victo­rious troops by a route by which the wind and rain could scarcely penetrate, now with the rapidity of lightening fell upon the infidels, and des­patched a great number of them to the infernal regions. On the other side, the French under Monsieur Lally and the Assud Ilahi Risalas or regiments of Chelahs,* made numbers of these Pagans food for the musket and bayonet;— on the other flank also, the infantry of the body guard* with the greatest intrepidity took up their enemies one by one on the points of their spears or bayonets and threw them head foremost into the depths of hell, and many of the infidels were made prisoners. Notwithstanding all this, they still stood firm and made many vigorous attacks on the Sul­tán’s army and dispersed them. At this time, therefore, the select of the body guard and certain of the Sipahdárs seeing the bravery of the enemy, assembled those who still remained, and determin­ing by successive charges to make an impression, threw themselves at once on the enemy. In the twinkling of an eye, therefore, the bonds which kept together the infidels were broken and they lost their stability and firmness, and placed their feet in the desert of flight.