[10] Tufan, storm, andhi, darkness.

[11] Earthquakes tend generally to be more frequent in the regions of
    extra-peninsular India, where the rocks have been more recently folded,
    than in the more stable Peninsula.  Serious earthquakes have occurred
    recently in Assam, June, 1897, and in Kangra, Panjab, April,
    1907. (Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1907, i. 98 f.)

[12] Kanauj, in the Farrukhabad District, United Provinces of Agra
    and Oudh.  The ruin of the great city was due to attacks by Mahmud
    of Ghazni, A.D. 1019, and by Shihab-ud-din, Muhammad Ghori,
    in 1194.

[13] Garm dahani, hot inflammation, prickly heat.

[14] Multani mitti, ‘Multan Earth’, a soft, drab-coloured
    saponaceous earth, like fuller’s earth, used in medicine and for
    cleansing the hair.

[15] Cholera (haiza) was known to the Hindus long before the arrival of
    the Portuguese, who first described it (Yule, Hobson-Jobson[2], 586
    ff.).  The attention of English physicians was first seriously called
    to it in 1817, when it broke out in the Jessore District of Bengal,
    and in the camp of Marquess Hastings in the Datiya State, Central
    India. (See Sleeman, Rambles, 163, 232.)

[16] Zahr-mohra, ‘poison vanguard’:  the bezoar stone, believed to be
    an antidote to poison (Yule, Hobson-Jobson[2], 90 f.).

[17] Sikanjabin, oxymel, vinegar, lime-juice, or other acid, mixed
    with sugar or honey.

[18] Loban.

LETTER XIX

Kannoge.—­Formerly the capital of Hindoostaun.—­Ancient castle.—­Durability of the bricks made by the aborigines.—­Prospect from the Killaah (castle).—­Ruins.—­Treasures found therein.—­The Durgah Baallee Peer Kee.—­Mukhburrahs.—­Ancient Mosque.—­Singular structure of some stone pillars.—­The Durgah Mukdoom Jhaunneer.—­Conversions to the Mussulmaun Faith.—­Anecdote.—­Ignorance of the Hindoos.—­Sculpture of the Ancients.—­Mosque inhabited by thieves.—­Discovery of Nitre.—­Method of extracting it.—­Conjectures of its produce.—­Residence in the castle.—­Reflections.

Kannoge, now comparatively a Native village, situated about midway between Cawnpore and Futtyghur, is said to have been the capital of Hindoostaun, and according to Hindoo tradition was the seat of the reigning Rajahs two thousand years prior to the invasion of India by the Sultaun Timoor.  If credit be given to current report, the Hindoos deny that the Deluge extended to India[1] as confidently as the Chinese declare that it never reached China.

These accounts I merely state as the belief of the Hindoos, and those the least educated persons of the population.  The Mussulmauns, however, are of a different opinion; the account they give of the Deluge resembles the Jewish, and doubtless the information Mahumud has conveyed to his followers was derived from that source.