So far from the seaboard, the range between extremes of winter and summer temperature is great. The mean temperature in the shade in June is about 92°, in January about 50°. In midsummer the thermometer sometimes rises to 115° in the shade, and remains (on rare occasions) as high as 105° throughout the night. In winter the morning temperature has sometimes been as low as 20°. The rainfall is uncertain as well as scanty: the annual average is about 15 inches; it is sometimes as low as 8°; a total of 25° is exceptionally high. The harvests are greatly dependent on irrigation. The prevailing winds are westerly (N.W. and S.W.) in the hot weather, and easterly (E. and N.E.) in the cold season. The Lahore division became British territory in March 1849, on the annexation of the part of the Punjab west of the Biâs river, at the close of the second Sikh war.

Lahore District has an area of 3648 square miles, with a population of 789,666 (438,335 males and 351,331 females;—Sikhs, 119,268; Hindus, 116,287; Mohammedans, 470,216; others, 83,895). Of this number about 3000 are Europeans and Eurasians, residing chiefly at Lahore and its cantonment of Miân Mir. The district contains 1455 villages, with an agricultural population of 354,012. The gross revenue is £110,518—£74,353 being derived from the land. Of the area 1,165,440 acres are under cultivation, 811,520 uncultivated, and 357,760 uncultivable. Of the uncultivated area nearly 237,000 acres are unappropriated cultivable waste land, the property of the Government. Irrigation is supplied to upwards of 180,000 acres by the Bâri Doâb canal and three inundation canals from the Sutlej (filled for a certain time each year by the rise of the river), which are Government works, and about 267,000 acres are watered by private wells.

The chief crops are—wheat, about 436,000 acres; gram (chickpea, for cattle), 230,000; barley, 58,000; maize, 25,000; rice, 18,000; various food grains, 85,000; sugarcane, 2500; vegetablés, 7000; capsicum, 1500; tobacco, 5000; poppy, 1000; cotton, 40,000; oil seeds, 15,000. Indigo, now only grown on a small scale in this part of India, was formerly one of the important products of the country round Lahore, which had the reputation of great fertility. The traders on the part of the East India Company in the 17th century paid much attention to the indigo of Lahore. The court minutes of the Company, July 19, 1614, notice the proposal of Captain Newport at Surat for “a voyage to the river Syndus, whence the Lahore indigo comes.” Captain Downton, writing to the Company in November of the same year regarding the opposition which the English merchants met with at Surat, expresses a wish that they had some hope of being able “to transport their goods by that fair river of Sinde to and from that goodly country round Lahore.” And another trader speaks in 1615 of the great store of indigo to be had both at Ahmadabad and at Lahore. No doubt what was reckoned Lahore indigo may have been in great part indigo from elsewhere, passing through Lahore as the trade centre of that part of India,—just as, at the present day, the rock salt of the Punjab is in other provinces commonly called Lahori, though it comes from the salt hills west of the Jhelum. The importance of Lahore as a centre of trade at the time above referred to, is shown also in some of Sir T. Roe’s letters. Lahore now receives indigo from Bengal. The rent per acre of good wheat land in the Lahore district is about 5 rupees. The selling price of wheat in ordinary years is about 26 seers (52 lb) for a rupee. The waterlevel in the neighbourhood of Lahore is at a depth of 30 to 36 feet from the surface of the ground. In the tract between the Râvi and the Chenâb it is from 15 to 30 feet. In the south and southwest parts of the district, between the Râvi and the Sutlej, the depth is from 40 to 70 feet, except in some strips of low land.

After the opening of the Bari Doab canal, the water-level in wells of village lands on both sides of the canal was permanently raised, in some cases as much as 12 feet. The Lahore district has 107 miles of metalled roads and 688 miles unmetalled, 97 miles of railway, and 104 miles of navigable rivers.

Lahore City lies in 31° 34'N. lat. and 74° 2ΓE. long., on the left bank of the river Râvi, about 900 feet above the sea level. It is a walled town, about 1∣ miles in length from west to east, and about -∣ mile in breadth from north to south. The intramural population is 98,924; with the suburbs Anarkali, Muzang, and Ichra, the number is 128,441. The city walls, rebuilt in the time of Akbar, towards the end of the 16th century, were of great height, in some parts upwards of 36 feet, and higher at the gateways and parts adjoining. Ranjit Singh added a deep ditch, with a broad faussebraie (paunτ) between the ditch and the walls, and large outworks, shielding with a massive defence each of the city gates. The fort or citadel, in which was the palace, is on high ground on the north face of the city, and has three gates, one direct to the open plain on the north, and one on each side, east and west, into the city. Only the north gate of the fort is now open. The city gate next the fort on the west, called the Roshndi or bright gate, leads into the small enclosure, called the Huzûri Bagh or Court Garden, from which on the one side rises the great flight of steps to the terrace of the imperial mosque, and on the other the ascent through a fine gateway (now closed) to the palace in the fort. The fort and palace, with the conspicuous Samaη Burj (properly musamman, octagonal tower; it is a half octagon), present a striking appearance viewed from the open plain on the north.

The site of the present city has been occupied from early times, and much of it stands high above the level of the country outside, raised on the remains of many successive series of former habitations. Some of the old buildings, which have been preserved when changes were going on around, stand now below the surface of the ground about them. This is well seen in the mosque now called Masjid Niwîn (or sunken), built 1560, the mosque of Mullah Rahmat, 7 feet below, and the Shiväla (Hindu temple), a very old building near the revenue office, about 12 feet below the surrounding ground. The houses are of brick, irregular in construction, three and more stories in height, many of them with projecting balconies and lattice windows ornamented with varieties of carved woodwork. The streets, narrow and winding, were, under the Sikh Government, and at the time of the first British occupation of the city in 1846, extremely unregulated and dirty. The water supply, from numerous wells throughout the city, was for the most part exceedingly impure. A cleansing and draining of the streets had to be taken in hand at once, when the city was held by British troops. The governor-general of India, Lord Hardinge, having, after the defeat of the Sikh army at Sabrâon, advanced to Lahore and concluded a treaty with the Sikh Government, a British force was left, to hold Lahore for that year (1846), the fort being reserved for the maharaja. But the occupation of Lahore was prolonged. A British resident was appointed, and barracks were built for the troops in the Anarkali suburb. After the annexation of the Punjab in 1849 the government of the country was placed in the hands of a board of administration. The fort was held by the British troops, the rest of the force assigned to Lahore being quartered outside the city in the cantonment of Anarkali. Subsequently a site for a permanent cantonment was selected at Miân Mir, about five miles south-east of the city; and all the troops, British and native, are now quartered there, except the small garrison of the fort.

In 1852 the lofty walls, which greatly impeded the free airing of the interior of the city, were reduced to a height of from 14 to 20 feet, and the whole of the massive outworks were removed. In 1863 the ditch was filled in and the faussebraie levelled; and on this broad strip of new land immediately outside the city walls public gardens were laid out, and supplied with a watercourse from the Bâri Doâb canal. This work of improvement was carried out under the immediate direction of the native gentlemen of the Lahore municipal committee.

The municipality now includes within its limits the greater part of the civil station of Lahore, which covers, in addition to the ground occupied by the old Anarkali cantonment, a large area south and south-east of the city. All new public buildings have been erected in this civil station outside the walls. The principal of these are the deputy commissioner’s court-house, the Government college, the Mayo hospital, the senate hall of the Punjab University College (the gift of the nawâb of Bahawalpιir). The Lahore Industrial and Antiquarian Museum is in the building erected for the “Punjab Exhibition” of 1864. A building for the school of art in connexion with the museum is in progress. The medical school, at first held in a disused barrack of the Anarkali cantonment, and then in hired houses, is now about to be provided with a suitable building at the Mayo hospital. The block of buildings erected for the British residency and offices, and used for this purpose up to the time of annexation, is now occupied by the chief court,the Government secretariat offices, civil and military, and the offices of the financial commissioner of the Punjab, and of the commissioner of the Lahore division. A new building for the chief court is about to be erected. A large building for the Government telegraph department has lately been finished. The post-office occupies one of the barracks of the old cantonment, and others of them continue to be occupied by the offices of various Government departments—public works, public instruction, prisons, &c. The central jail stands on the site of the British camp of 1846; and in the large public grounds which contain the botanical and zoological gardens stand the John Lawrence Hall and the Montgomery Hall, erected in honour of the first two lieutenant-governors of the Punjab. Of native buildings applied to new purposes there are, in the palace (1630-1640) the Diwan-i-âm (or hall of audience), serving as a barrack for the fort garrison; the two buildings called KhwAb-gαh (or sleeping apartments), used as the Protestant and Boman Catholic places of worship for the troops in the fort; the vaults of the Kdla Burj and Lal Burj (black and red towers) used as commissariat store-rooms; the Mdti Masjid (pearl mosque), which Banjit Singh made his treasury, still used for the same purpose. The armoury, in an adjoining building, contains an interesting collection of arms and armour of the Mughal and Sikh times.

In the city, the mansion of Raja l5hyan Singh, Ranjit’s prime minister (which was the British artillery mess house in 1846), contains the Government district school, the Oriental college, and the hall of the Anjuman-i-Panjab, an active literary and educational society. The quadrangle of the Huzûri Bagh (or royal garden) contains the Government normal school. In the Rang Mahal is the large high school of the American Presbyterian mission.

Outside the city, half way between the civil and miiitaιy stations, is Government House, the official residence of the lieutenant-governor of the Punjab, formerly the house of the Jamadar Khush-hâl Singh, a Brahman who, with varied fortunes, held high offices under Ranjit Singh. The original building round which the present large house was erected was the tomb of Sayid Nur-ud-din, called also Nur-ul-Alam, of Bokhara (1616), which is the lofty square apartment iu the middle of the present building. The tomb of Nâdirah Begam was fitted up in the early days of British rule as the station church, and continues to be used for this purpose. (A large new church has been commenced, which will now be the cathedral of the lately constituted diocese of Lahore. ) The tomb of Shah Chiragh (1660 a.d.) is, with large additions made from time to time, the office of the accountant-general of the province. The bdradari or summer house (commonly called chau-burji, the building with four turrets) of Nawab Wazir Khan (1631), long occupied by the museum, is now the station library and reading room.

Educational and other Institutions.—The Punjab University College, established in 1869 to give special encouragement to the cultivation of Oriental learning, and instruction in European science through the vernacular languages, is supported with much zeal by the chiefs and native gentlemen of the Punjab. It is now about to be raised to the status of a university, with power to confer degrees. The other educational institutions of Lahore are the Government college, the normal school, the Oriental college, the district Anglo-vernacular school, the high school for boys of European parentage, the Anarkali school for girls, another girls’ school of the same class near the railway station, chiefly for the children of the railway employés, St James’s orphanage and free school, for poorer children, European and Eurasian. The large and prosperous school of the American Presbyterian mission in the city has been mentioned above. The medical school, established in 1860, gives a five years’ course, in the English language, qualifying for a diploma as licentiate in medicine, and for employment in the Government service in the grade of assistant-surgeon. A three years’ course, in the Urdu language, trains a lower class of students for the grade of hospital assistant or native doctor. The number of students in the upper class is between fifty and sixty, in the lower from eighty to one hundred. The Mayo school of industrial art has in view mainly the cultivation of Oriental art as applied to decoration and manufactures, and, in aid of this purpose, instruction in drawing, modelling, &c. Among other works on which the trained pupils have been employed is the production of plaster casts of the Buddhist sculptures in the museum, obtained from explorations in the north-west districts of the Punjab. St John’s Divinity College (Church Missionary Society) gives theological instruction, in the Urdu language, to native Christian students, ten of whom are now pastors of native congregations in different parts of northern India.

There is a Government book depot for the sale of educational and other books; and from the depository of the Punjab Religious Book Society there is a largo and increasing sale of books of religious and general literature in English and in the vernacular languages. A large number of books in the native languages are issued annually from the local presses. Nine newspapers in Indian languages are published at Lahore—seven in Urdu, one in Hindi, and one in Arabic. One of the Lahore Urdu papers has the largest circulation of any native paper published out of Bengal. There is one daily English paper, and one under native editorship and management in the English language.

In the Lahore central jail, which is capable of receiving 2000 inmates, many useful manufactures are carried on by the prisoners. For the carpets made in this jail there is a large demand in the English market. Besides the two smaller jails, the district jail and the female jail, there is a Thaggi jail and school of industry, in which the few remaining Thags (or Thugs—highway stranglers and robbers) are taught useful work, chiefly tent making. A large lunatic asylum occupies the enclosed buildings of one of the old Sikh cantonments.

Trade.—The Lahore municipality has an annual income of nearly 170,000 rupees, the chief source of which is the octroi. Lahore imports from other parts of the Punjab, and the hill countries beyond, tobacco, dyes, bamboos, hides, Kashmir paper, felts, and silk fabrics; from Bengal and the southern provinces, indigo, spices, English piece goods, and other foreign products and manufactures; from Bombay, metals and metal work, cutlery, &c., and drugs. The chief manufactures of Lahore—but they are none of them on a great scale— are woollen and silk fabrics for clothing, carpets (cotton and woollen), embroidery on leather, ivory carving, toys, pottery, turnery, metal work of various kinds, arms, jewellery, &c. Lahore has long been noted for its carpets. One of the travelling agents of the East India Company in 1617, writing from Agra, reports the purchase of various articles, including thirty Lahore carpets. Soon after he writes from the same place, “It requires a long time to get well ehosen carpets. True Lahore carpets are not suddenly to be gotten.” Two years later, December 1619, another, writing from Sirhind about carpets, says, ‘ ‘ Lahore is the chief place for that commodity.” A little later in the same century it is observed that from Lahore were obtained fine muslins, flowered and embroidered silks, woollen drapery, and all sorts of carpets.

Health.—The general health of Lahore is good, but the city and civil station, as well as the cantonment of Mian Mir, have suffered from occasional severe visitations of cholera and fever, as well as of small-pox. A large amount of rain within a short space of time, though the total of the year may be under the average, is usually followed by malarious fever, while a larger rainfall, more distributed, is healthy. Of much importance to the health of Lahore is the large work which the municipality has executed for the supply of water to the city and suburbs. The water is pumped from wells in the bed of the river Ravi to a covered reservoir in a high part of the city, from which it is distributed. A scheme of drainage and sewerage works, dependent on this supply of water, is about to be carried out. For the military station of Mian Mir water has been brought in by a cut from the Bari Doâb canal.

Communication.—Lahore is in railway communication with the most important places in the Punjab, and with the other provinces of India. Its distance from Delhi is 323 miles (Sind, Punjab, and Delhi Railway); from Calcutta, 1277 miles (East India Railway); from Bombay by Delhi and Allahabad (East India Railway ami Great Indian Peninsular), 1558 miles; from Bombay by Delhi and Ajmir (Rajputana State Railway), 1230; from Multan (Sind, Punjab, and Delhi Railway), 207; from Kurrachee, the nearest point on the sea-coast (Sind, Punjab, and Delhi Railway and Indus Valley State Railway), 814; and from the Afghan frontier at Peshawar (Punjab Northern State Railway), 271 miles. This last line still wants, to complete it, the great bridge across the Indus at Attok, now in course of construction. A narrow-gauge branch, from this line, for the salt traffic, is open to the bank of the Jhelum river, opposite Pind Dadan Khan. At Lahore there is one central railway station for all the lines, a short distance east of the Delhi gate.

History and Antiquities.—To this account of Lahore under British rule will now be added a short sketch of its previous history, and the works of former days w hich still remain.

Lahore is said to have been founded by Lava or Lοh, one of the sons of Rama; and it has borne the names Lavapùr, Loh-ρύτ, Lohkot, Lohawar, Lâhawar. The city of Lava is probably the Laula1ιa of the Raja Tarangini, or history of the kings of Kashmir. To Kashmir belonged for...