amounting, on the war eftablifhment, to ten thoufand men;
and may be confidered as a great encampment, the men living
in huts with their families inftead of tents.
C rossing the Ganges at this place, I continued my pro-
grefs to Lucknow, where I arrived on the 25th of January.
The diftance from Calcutta to this place is commonly faid to
be, by the route through Benares, nearly nine hundred miles ;
but this eftimate is certainly too great. Major Rennell, whofe
authority muflr be confidered as abfolute, determines it to be
650 miles, by the neareft road. It is well known that tins
city is at prefent the capital of the province of Oud, and the
'refidence of Afoph ul Dowlah, the Nabob, who is alfo Vizier
of the remaining part of the empire of the Great Mogul.
The city is extenfive, hut meanly built: the houfes are chiefly
mud walls, covered with thatch, and many confift: entirely of
mats and bamboos, and are thatched with leaves of the
cocoa nut, palm, and fometimes with ftraw. Very few, indeed,
of the houfes of the natives ate built with brick: the
ftreets are crooked, narrow, and the worft I have feen in India.
In the dry feafon the dull and heat are intolerable j in
the rainy feafon the mire is fo deep, as to be fcarcely paflable ;
and there are a great number of elephants, belonging to the
Nabob and the great men of his court, which are continually
pa fling the ftreets, either to the palace, or to the river, to the
great danger and annoyance of the foot paflenger, as well
as the inferior clafs of fhopkeepers. The comforts, the eon-
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