an ancient and celebrated town and fortress of Afghanistan, on the western extremity of a range of hills running east and west, and rising a moderate height above the plain. As the plain itself lies very high, the site has an elevation of 7726 feet above the sea. The shape of the whole inclosed fortress is nearly an irregular square, and the total circuit is about a mile and a quarter. The face of the rock on which the walls are built is about 35 feet high and scarped nearly perpendicularly; the walls are about the same height, so that the parapet is 70 feet above the ditch. This wall is flanked by numerous towers, and surrounded by a fausse-braye. A wet ditch runs along the bottom of the steep on which the wall is built, and obtains a supply of water from the river of Ghizni, which flows round the western angle and is crossed by two bridges. The citadel in the north of the town is an irregular square, with a magazine in the west quarter, and a granary in the east. Three miles to the N.E. of Ghizni are the ruins of the old city, destroyed in the middle of the twelfth century by the prince of Ghoor. Amidst the destruction which overtook nearly all besides, the conqueror spared the tomb of the renowned Mahmood of Ghizni, the ruler of Persia, Turkestan, Afghanistan, and a considerable part of India. The tomb is a rude structure, consisting of an oblong chamber 36 feet long and 18 wide, with a mud cupola. The grave-stone is of marble, covered with inscriptions, and is highly polished—the result of being handled by numerous visitors during several centuries. The interior is hung with ostrich eggs, peacock feathers, and other trumpery. The apartment in which repose the relics of the mighty victor was, previously to the British invasion, closed by the gates which it is believed he triumphantly removed from the temple of Somnath in Guzerat. These gates, to which an undue importance has been attributed by Christian, Hindoo, and Mussulman, are of sandal wood, 18 feet high, each 5 feet broad and 3 inches thick, very beautifully carved in tasteful arabesques. As Mahmood is said to have removed these gates in 1024, they must, in this view, be above 800 years old, yet they are still in perfect preservation. In 1842, when the British under General Nott dismantled Ghizni, they carried off these gates with the view of restoring them to their original place in the temple at Pattan in Guzerat. Probably the earliest authentic notice which history affords of Ghizni is of the date 976, when it was made the seat of government by Abustakeen, an adventurer of Bokhara. He was, after a short interval, succeeded by Subuctageen, the father of the renowned Mahmood the destroyer. Few pursued the career of conquest with more perseverance or success than Mahmood, whose empire extended from the Tigris to the Ganges, and from the Indian Ocean to the Oxus. It fell to pieces on his death; and in 1151 his capital Ghizni was stormed by Allahudeen, Prince of Ghoor, who massacred the inhabitants on the spot, with the exception of those of rank, whom he conveyed to Ghoor, and there butchered, using their blood to moisten the mortar with which he constructed his fortifications. From that period Ghizni ceased to be independent; and at the time of the British invasion it was held by a garrison of 3000 men, under the command of Mahomed Hyder Khan, son of Dost Mahomed Khan. On the 23rd of July 1839 it was stormed by the British army, amounting to 4863 men, commanded by Sir John Keane: 514 of the garrison were killed, 1500 prisoners taken, with a loss on the part of the captors of only 17 killed. In place of the tedious process of breaching, for which the assailants were but ill prepared, Captain Thomson, of the Bengal Engineers, undertook to blow in one of the gates with gunpowder. An opening was thus made for the entrance of the storming party, who after a severe struggle within the town succeeded in planting the British colours on the citadel. In 1842 Ghizni was surrendered by the British garrison to the Afghans; and shortly after, in the same year, it was retaken by the army under General Nott, by whom it was dismantled and immediately evacuated. Lat. 33. 34., Long. 68. 18.