remains to point to posterity the final resting place of the last monarch of Hindoostaun.  His grave is made by his favourite daughter’s side, whose affection had been his only solace in the last years of his earthly sufferings; a little masonry of brick and plaster supports the mound of earth over his remains, on which I observed the grass was growing, apparently cultured by some friendly hand.  At the period of my visit, the solitary ornament to this last terrestrial abode of a King was a luxuriant white jessamine tree, beautifully studded with blossoms, which scented the air around with a delightful fragrance, and scattered many a flower over the grave which it graced by its remarkable beauty, height, and luxuriance.  The sole canopy that adorns Shah Allum’s grave is the rich sky, with all its resplendent orbs of day and night, or clouds teeming with beneficent showers.  Who then could be ambitious, vain, or proud, after viewing this striking contrast to the grave of Shah Nizaam?  The vain-glorious humbled even in the tomb;—­the humble minded exalted by the veneration ever paid to the righteous.

I was persuaded to visit the ruins of antiquity which are within a morning’ s drive of Delhi.  Nothing that I there witnessed gave me so much pleasure as the far-famed Kootub, a monument or pillar, of great antiquity, claimed equally by the Hindoo and Mussulmaun as due to their respective periods of sovereign rule.  The site is an elevated spot, and from the traces of former buildings, I am disposed to believe this pillar, standing now erect and imposing, was one of the minarets of a mosque, and the only remains of such a building, which must have been very extensive, if the height and dimensions of the minaret be taken as a criterion of the whole.[10]

This pillar has circular stairs within, leading to galleries extending all round, at stated distances, and forming five tiers from the first gallery to the top, which finishes with a circular room, and a canopy of stone, open on every side for the advantage of an extensive prospect.  Verses from the Khoraun are cut out in large Arabic characters on the stones, which form portions of the pillar from the base to the summit in regular divisions; this could only be done with great labour, and, I should imagine, whilst the blocks of stone were on the level surface of the earth, which renders it still more probable that it was a Mussulmaun erection.

The view from the first gallery was really so magnificent, that I was induced to ascend to the second for a still bolder extent of prospect, which more than repaid me the task.  I never remember to have seen so picturesque a panorama in any other place.  Some of my party, better able to bear the fatigue, ascended to the third and fourth gallery.  From them I learned that the beauty and extent of the view progressively increased until they reached the summit, from whence the landscape which fell beneath the eye surpassed description.