countless hands and naked feet have rendered them indis

tinguishable.

First we enter some low and stifling rooms, from which a sound of chanting issues out of the gloom, then higher up we come to a temple, as large as a cathedral, whose ponderous roof is upheld by a forest of columns. The profane are allowed to enter on condition that they do not advance too far; so it is impossible to see where the temple finishes, and there are passages and sculptured grottos which disappear into the blackness of the rock. In a corner, near a hole where the light comes, some Brahmin children are engaged in the study of the holy books under the tutelage of an old man who is entirely covered with white hair. From the roof prodigious properties belonging to the Brahmin procession are suspended—men, cars, horses and elephants, all larger than their natural size, strange forms, carefully made from cardboard and painted, or tinselled paper stretched over a thin framework of bamboo.

Tribes of little birds, swallows or sparrows, in that anxiety for reproduction which characterizes the life of this land, have found time between two religious processions to fill these fantastic carcasses with their nests; so the confused forms of the suspended monsters are gay with the fluttering of wings and musical with the chirping of the young birds whose song falls like light hail on the ground below.

We have to mount higher yet. These polished walls, which are often of a single block, and the semi-darkness

remind one of a catacomb; but a flood of sunlight suddenly pierces through a hole cut in the rock and we see the pagodas and palm-trees stretched far beneath us. There are also some stones which have been brought here as large as those of the early stone age; these have been thrown, pell-mell and unjointed, one on top of the other, but their huge weight keeps them in position, and time can never shift them from their place.

At every step we encounter Brahmins of superb form and appearance whose chests are daubed with ashes in honour of Siva, the god of death. They hurriedly ascend and descend, busied with the arrangements for to-morrow's festival, disappearing into the passages that are forbidden to me, and bringing out copper vases filled with water or bearing garlands to the gods I may not see.

There is yet another temple. I may not enter it, but only look in from the threshold. It is built over the one I have just left, but is much larger and more magnificent, and much lighter too, for there are many square openings in the roof through which the blue sky can be seen, through which the sunlight falls on the ædicules sheathed in their many coloured and gilt ornaments.

Above this last sanctuary are the terraces from which the plains of Tanjore may be seen extending as far as the eye can see, dotted with thousands of other temples that emerge from the green palms.

At last we reach the stone which forms the summit, a single block which the original volcanic disturbance has

placed here somewhat unsteadily. This is the stone which looks like the prow of a ship or the crest of a helmet when it is seen from below. The sun is shining on its smooth sides as we ascend by one hundred and forty faintly traced steps so narrow, worn and sloping that we cannot escape a feeling of giddiness.

It is on these final terraces, adorned with golden cupolas, that the sacred fire is nightly lit. Here also, in a dark and heavy kiosk, surrounded by iron bars like a wild beasts' den, the supreme idol is found; their god, the horrible Ganesa, is the wild beast, and until one approaches quite close to the bars, his crouching form cannot be discerned. His elephant's ears and trunk fall over the protruding belly, and the stone body is half-clothed in gray, dirty, torn rags. Here the captive god, whose expression is fierce and cunning, reigns alone and supreme in the airy temple built above all the rest of temples, from which an uninterrupted stream of music and prayer has poured forth for the last two thousand years.

We stand far above the region of human habitation, and almost above the zone which the birds inhabit. Below us we see the whirling flights of crows and the eagles whose wings are stretched out motionlessly in the air. The country that we overlook is one where religion holds its extremest sway; temples are scattered everywhere, almost as abundantly as trees, and the red harvest of sacred pyramids emerges on all sides above the verdure. So plentifully do the sacred towers rise above the palms that from the height

at which we are situated they resemble mole-hills in a field of grass. These twenty-four monstrous towers down there, grouped like the tents of an encampment, belong to the temple of Chri Ragam, the largest of the sanctuaries of Vishnu-where I am going to-morrow to see the passing of a solemn procession. The town is situated at the base of the overhanging rock, and the complicated network of streets, the profusion of many coloured temples and the mosques that are so white as to look bluish, are marked out as on a highly coloured map; the holy ponds, which seem to swarm with black flies, shine like mirrors in the sun; these are no flies, however, but Brahmins at their morning ablutions.

All the sounds of the animated and seething life below mingle as they rise up to us; the noise of the joyful town, the rumbling of zebu carts, the tom-toms and bagpipes of the streets, the croakings of the eternal crows, the screams of the eagles, the psalms from the many temples beneath our feet, and the braying of the sacred horns that never cease to echo round the sides of the rock on which we stand.

TH

THE IRON PILLAR OF DELHI

VINCENT A. SMITH

HE great mosque built by Qutb-ud-din 'Ibak in 1191 A. D., and subsequently enlarged by his successors, as well as its minaret, the celebrated Qutb Minar, stands on the site of Hindu temples, and within the limits of the fortifications known as the Fort of Rai Pithaura, which were erected in the middle or latter part of the Twelfth Century to protect the Hindu city of Delhi from the attacks of the Mussulmans, who finally captured it in A. D. 1191. These buildings are situated about nine miles south of modern Delhi, or Shahjahanabad, and lie partly within the lands attached to the village of Mihirauli (Mehrauli).

"The front of the masjid (mosque) is a wall eight feet thick, pierced by a line of five noble arches. The centre arch is twenty-two feet wide and nearly fifty-three feet in height and the side arches are ten feet wide and twentyfour feet high. Through these gigantic arches the first Mussulmans of Delhi entered a magnificent room, 135 feet long and thirty-one feet broad, the roof of which was supported on five rows of the tallest and finest of the Hindu pillars. The mosque is approached through a cloistered court, 145 feet in length from east to west and ninety-six feet in width. In the midst of the west half of this court