I  received  in  reply  a  hearty  welcome  to  the  country,  with
the  assurance  that,  as  there  was  no  hotel  in  the  place,  he
would  arrange  for  the  accommodation  of  the  entire  party
at  private  houses  provided  we  brought  our  own  beds  and
bedding  with  us.  AVhen  we  reached  Agra  we  had  not  laid
in  a  supply  of  linen,  and  inquisition  was  at  once  made  at
the  principal  hotel  in  the  city,  but,  after  the  most  diligent
search,  only  four  sheets  could  be  mustered  for  seven  persons,
not  all  mated.  Of  course,  no  one  could  have  more  than  a
single  sheet,  and  not  every  one  could  have  even  that.
We  found  it  almost  as  difficult  to  make  a  living  at  the
table,  the  commissariat  being  as  poorly  supplied  as  the
wardrobe.  The  servants  were  all  natives  who  had  never
found  it  convenient  to  cultivate  the  Eno-lish  lano;ua2;e,  and
we  had  no  time  to  cultivate  the  Hindustani,  Persian,  Mah-
ratta,  or  any  of  the  numerous  dialects  of  the  region,  so  that
we  fared  ill  while  we  were  guests  at  the  East  Indian  hotel.
After  a  vain  attempt  to  gather  up  the  fragments  of  the
sleep  which  we  had  lost  on  the  rail  and  at  the  stations  dur-
ing the  night,  we  sallied  forth  to  visit  the  renowned  fort
and  palace  of  the  emperors.  Agra,  or,  as  it  was  once  called,
Akbarabad,  first  rose  to  importance  in  the  beginning  of  the
sixteenth  century,  and  from  1526  to  1658  it  was  the  capital
of  the  house  of  Timour.  Here,  for  more  than  a  century,
the  Moguls  lavished  their  wealth  on  costly  buildings  to  be
occupied  while  they  lived,  and  erected  still  more  costly
structures  in  which  to  repose  after  they  were  dead.
