As one’s eye becomes cooler one begins to distinguish in the front, which is faced with slabs of pure white marble, the divisions adorned by inscriptions from the Koran inlaid in letters of black marble, and the singularly airy little pavilions which crown the minarets.  We ascended one of the minarets by a winding staircase of one hundred and thirty steps, and here, while our gaze took flight over Delhi and beyond, traversing in a second the achievements of many centuries and races, Bhima Gandharva told me of the glories of old Delhi.  Indranechta—­as Delhi appears in the fabulous legends of old India, and as it is still called by the Hindus—­dates its own birth as far back as three thousand years before our era.  It was fifty-seven years before the time of Christ that the name of Delhi began to appear in history.  Its successive destructions (which a sketch like this cannot even name) left enormous quantities of ruins, and as its successive rebuildings were accomplished by the side of (not upon) these remains, the result has been that from the garden of Shahlimar, the site of which is on the north-west of the town, to beyond the Kantab Minar, whose tall column I could plainly distinguish rising up nine miles off to the south-west, the plain of Delhi presents an accumulation and variety of ruins not to be surpassed in the whole world.

LIFE-SAVING STATIONS.

With their enthusiasm fairly kindled for the work which the government carries on in the signal-service department of the little house on the beach,[A] our exploring party descended the narrow ladder and found themselves in a ten-by-twelve room, warmed by a stove and surrounded by benches.  It is used, the old captain who has volunteered as guide tells us, by the men on the life-saving service during the nine months in which they are on duty.  A cheerful fire was burning in the stove, and we gathered about it:  the wind blew a stronger gale each moment outside, barring out the far sea-horizon with a wall of gray mist.  The tide rolled up on the shelving beach beneath the square window with a sullen, treacherous roar.

“It’s the bar that gives the sea that sound,” said the captain.  “This is the ugliest bit of coast for vessels from Nova Scotia to Florida.  It’s like this,” drawing his finger across the table in the vain effort to map out the matter intelligibly to a landsman’s comprehension.  “Here’s the Jersey coast.  You’ve got to hug it close with your vessel to make New York harbor—­there; and all along it, from Sandy Hook to Cape May, runs the bar—­so.  Broken, but so much the worse.  A nor’-easter drives you on it, sure.  I’ve known from sixteen to twenty wracks in a winter on this coast before the companies or government took up the matter.”