THERE is a little business [going on] in our high Sircar.* Dispatch to the Presence, for a short time,* a seal-engraver.

Although there is an air of mystery in this short note, it might possibly only mean, that the Sultan had occasion to employ a seal-engraver, and therefore desired one to be sent him from Adoni, where, perhaps, this branch of business might be better understood than at Seringapatam. Thus, about thirty years ago, every one on the northern side of India, who was desirous of having his name or titles engraved in a superior manner, employed, for this purpose, an eminent seal-engraver of Fyzabad, in the province of Oude, named Mahommed Sâleh, whose exquisite execution of the most beautiful Nustalikh character on the hardest stones, was certainly unrivalled, excepting by his own son, who succeeded him in his occupation. The charge for engraving depended on the stone employed. If that was a cornelian, the price was a rupee a letter; but if an emerald, or other stone equally hard, it amounted, I think, to six rupees a letter.