- served, however, in mitigation of the enormity of
their transactions, that they are in a measure compelled to subsist themselves and their horses in this manner; for their ignorant and unreflecting sovereign, in need of their service, but unwilling to reward them, suffers them in peaceful times to be reduced to such distress, that they are frequently constrained to sell their horses, arms, and even apparel, to purchase a morsel of bread.
In three days from this they arrived at Peshawer, a large, populous, and opulent city, founded by the great Akbar. Of all the places visited by our traveller in Northern India, none appeared to suffer so intense a heat as this city; but by skirting round the northern limits of the Punjâb he avoided Lahore, where he would probably have found an atmosphere equally heated with that of Peshawer. Other cities, he observes, may be afflicted with a too-great warmth; hot winds blowing over tracts of sand may drive their inhabitants under the shelter of a wetted screen; but here the air, during the middle of summer, becomes almost inflammable. Yet, notwithstanding this burning atmosphere, the inhabitants enjoy exceedingly good health, and are but little liable to epidemical disorders. This fact may easily be accounted for. The air of Peshawer, like that of the deserts of Arabia, in which the finest Damascus blades may be exposed all night without contracting the slightest rust, is extremely dry; and it would appear that heat, however intense, is not, when free from humidity, at all subversive of health. Another circumstance greatly tended to increase the salubrity of this city; provisions were excellent and abundant, especially the mutton, the flesh of the large-tailed sheep, said to have been first discovered in South America.
There being no caravansary at Peshawer, Forster took up his residence in an old mosque, where he continued several days, melting in perpetual perspira-
