GHIZNI, a district of Afghanistan, situated between the thirty-third and thirty-fourth degrees of north latitude, and between the sixty-eighth and sixty-ninth of east longitude. It is a table land, interspersed with a few hills, and possesses a very cold climate. The inhabitants, who are of the Ghiljie tribe, are all shepherds, who raise a number of sheep and lambs. The district is but thinly peopled. The principal towns are Ghizni, Kurrabaugh, and Gurdaiz.

Ghizni, a celebrated city of Afghanistan, the chief town of the above district, and forming the capital of a powerful empire, reaching from the Tigris to the Ganges, and from the Jaxartes to the Persian Gulf. It is now reduced to about 1500 houses, besides suburbs without the walls. Its situation is on a height, at the foot of which flows a pretty large stream. It is surrounded by stone walls, and contains three bazars of no great breadth, with high houses on each side, and a covered chaursoo or exchange, besides several dark and narrow streets. Ghizni was splendidly adorned by the Ghiznavi princes, especially by Sultan Mahmoud. But most of these splendid buildings have been long levelled with the dust; and only some few remains of the ancient grandeur of the city are to be seen in the neighbourhood, particularly two lofty minarets, which stand at some distance from each other, and are of different heiglUs, the least upwards of a hundred feet high. The tomb of Sultan Mahmoud is also standing, about three miles from the city. It is covered with a cupola, and is a spacious rather than a magnificént building. The doors, which are large, are of sandal wood, and said to have been brought by the sultan, as a trophy, from the famous temple of Somnaut in Guzerat, which he sacked in his last expedition to India. The tombstone is of white marble, on which are sculptured Arabic verses from the Koran; and at its head Ties the plain but mighty wooden mace, with a head of metal so heavy that few men can now use it. There are likewise some thrones or chairs, inlaid with mother of pearl, in the tomb, which are said to have belonged to Mahmoud. There are other ruins of less note, among which may be mentioned the ,tombs of Behtole the wise, and that of Hakeem Sunance, a poet. But there are no remains of the magnificent palaces of the Gaznavide kings, or of the mosques, baths, and caravanserais which once adorned the capital of the East. Of all the antiquities of Ghizni, the most useful is an embankment across a stream, which was built by Mahmoud, and which still supplies water to the fields and gardens round the town. This city was in the year 960 taken possession of by Abistagy, a rebel governor of Khorassan, who threw off his allegiance to the Samonavian dynasty of Persia, and founded a new kingdom. He was succeeded by his son-in-law Subactageen, who ascended the throne in 975, and extended hjs dominions to the banks of the Indus. Mahmoud, who succeeded, invaded India several times, and raised the glory of the Ghiznean empire to its highest pitch; and he first obtained from the κhalif the title of Sultan. He died in the year 1030, and was buried in a magnificent tomb. The kingdom continued to flourish till the year 1116, when a Persian army invaded the country, and took the capital. It was again taken about the year 1150, by Alaaddeen, the prince of Ghore. Irritated by an insult offered to his family by the inhabitants of Ghizni, he gave up the town to be pillaged by his soldiers, who for seven days massacred the inhabitants, and destroyed all the public buildings, sparing only the tombs. From this period may be dated the decline of the city. The royal family fled to Lahore, where, languishing through two weak reigns, the dynasty terminated in the person of Khosroo II. and in the year 1189. The travelling distance from Delhi by Cabul is 917 miles; from Cabul eighty-two miles. Long. 68. 22. E. Lat. 33. 36. N. (Elphinstone’s Account of Cabul ; Rennell’s Memoir of a Map of Hindustan ; Poster, &c.