1 PESHAWER. 101
2 of the happiness and prosperity then observed had passed away
3 even when Moorcroft visited the country in 1834, and the events
4 of the last few years have occasioned still greater desolation. In
5 its decay, however, after the devastation caused by the Sikhs,
6 Peshawer was estimated to yield a revenue of Rs. 1,000,000
7 per annum.
8 Through this fine province lies the great route from Khorasan
9 and Kabool into India, by the passes of the Khyber mountains
10 and across the Indus at Attock. It is, however, most perilously
11 situated in being exposed to the incursions of the wild inhabit-
12 ants of the mountains almost everywhere overhanging it, and
13 the difficulty of crossing the Indus greatly embarrasses the com-
14 munications with the Punjab, which has usually been the seat
15 of more settled and civilized power. The Sikhs, who overrun
16 the country by taking advantage of the dissensions of the Afghans,
17 have regarded the population rather as present enemics than
18 future fellow-subjects, and ruinously devastated both the capital
19 city-—-Peshawer—and the whole country. The only act apparently
20 at variance with their ordinary course of desolation was the con-
21 struction of the fortress of Peshawer, and that of Futteghur, at
22 Jamrood, at the eastern extremity of the Khyber pass, to com-
23 mand the passage into the plain. Besides the capital, there is no
24 place of much importance, except the fortress of Hushtnuggur at
25 the northern extremity. Acora, once an important place, is now
26 in ruins.
27 PESHAWER, or PESHAWUR, the capital of the pro-
28 vince of the same name, is situate about twelve .miles east of
29 the eastern extremity of the Khyber pass. In the early part
30 of the present century, when visited by Elphinstone, it was
31 a flourishing town, about five miles in “circuit, and reported
32 to contain 100,000 inhabitants. ‘Iwenty years later, Kunject
33 Singh, after defeating the Afghans in the decisive battle of
34 Noushera, took Peshawer, demolished the Bala Hissar, at once
35 the capital and state residence—destroyed the fine houses of
36 the chief Afghans—desecrated the mosques, and cutting down
37 the groves and orchards about the city, laid waste the sur-
38 rounding country. The subsequent exactions and oppressions
39 have effectually prevented its revival. The houses, built of mud
40 or unburnt brick, have flat roofs, on which the inhabitants spend
41 much of their time. The whole city has rather a melancholy
42 84433,