[4] This water might, I
believe, have been taken off to the eastward into the Jumna, had the
outlet been discovered by the engineers. An attempt was made to cut
the same drain on the approach of Lord Combermere in 1826; but a
party went on, and stopped the work before much water had passed, and
the ditch was almost dry when the siege began.
The walls being all of mud, and now dismantled, had a wretched
appearance;[5] and the town which is contained within them is, though
very populous, a mere collection of wretched hovels; the only
respectable habitation within is the palace, which consists of three
detached buildings--one for the chief, another for the females of his
family, and the third for his court of justice, I could not find a
single trace of the European officers who had been killed there,
either at the first or second siege, though I had been told that a
small tomb had been built in a neighbouring grove over the remains of
Brigadier-General Edwards, who fell in the last storm. It is, I
believe, the only one that has ever been raised. The scenes of
battles fought by the Muhammadan conquerors of India were commonly
crowded with magnificent tombs, built over the slain, and provided
for a time with the means of maintaining holy men who read the Koran
over their graves.
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