y Mohammedan dynasty of northern India,
having been founded almost two thousand years ago.

There is a museum of special local interest where are gathered and well
classified specimens of the natural products, industries, native gems,
minerals, animals, and birds throughout the Punjab, well worth a few
hours of examination and study. Opposite the museum building there was
observed, in the centre of an open plot of ground, a large, long cannon
mounted, and of Indian manufacture, over a century in age. It was used
by Ahmed Shah in the battle of Paniput and is famous among the populace
by the name of "Zamazamah." There are also mosques, mausoleums, and
forts to be visited, all attractive, with some curious ruins of old
palaces and Hindoo temples, to all of which we paid due attention, but a
detailed account of which would hardly interest the general reader. In
the better part of the town the streets are broad and lined by two-story
houses--a style not very common in India. From the ornamental balconies,
and projecting windows framed in lattice-work, the women of the harems
looked out upon us, with their faces partially covered, but yet taking
care to exhibit a profusion of jewelry, having three or four large loops
of gold in each ear, as well as nose-rings, outdoing in glitter their
sisters of Penang.

The few women to be met with in the streets had their bare feet thrust
into the tiniest of pink kid slippers, far too small for them, their
ankles covered with broad gold rings, five or six deep, coming up to the
calf. Their bare arms showed the wrists covered with bracelets of gold
and silver alternately, nearly to the elbow; and above the elbow was a
broad gold band. Some of them were so covered with rings, bracelets,
bangles, and necklaces as to amount to itinerant jewelry bazars. The
etiquette of these women, some of whom were scarcely out of their teens,
appeared to be, in the first place, to cover the face above the chin,
except the eyes, and then to expose as much of their bodies as could
effectively bear jewelry, including necklaces of either imitation or
real stones hanging down over the bosom. Add to the whole a reckless
disregard for natural delicacy, and you have a Lahore belle of to-day as
she appears on the street. We saw nowhere else in India such freedom and
publicity permitted to inmates of the harem. Girls are frequently
married here at twelve years, and the number of wives a man may possess,
in any part o