letters, standing out in bas-relief, the following passage in Arabic:  ’Jesus, on whom be peace, has said, “The word is merely a bridge; you are to pass over it, and not to build your dwellings upon it".’  Where this saying of Christ is to be found I know not, nor has any Muhammadan yet been able to tell me; but the quoting of such a passage, in such a place, is a proof of the absence of all bigotry on the part of Akbar.[14]

The tomb of Shaikh Salim, the hermit, is a very beautiful little building, in the centre of the quadrangle.[15] The man who guards it told me that the Jats, while they reigned, robbed this tomb, as well as those at Agra, of some of the most beautiful and valuable portion of the mosaic work.[16] ‘But,’ said he, ’they were well plundered in their turn by your troops at Bharatpur; retribution always follows the wicked sooner or later.’[17] He showed us the little roof of stone tiles, close to the original little dingy mosque of the old hermit, where the Empress gave birth to Jahangir;[18] and told us that she was a very sensible woman, whose counsels had great weight with the Emperor.[19] ‘His majesty’s only fault was’, he said, ’an inclination to learn the art of magic, which was taught him by an old Hindoo religious mendicant,’ whose apartment near the palace he pointed out to us.

‘Fortunately,’ said our cicerone, ’the fellow died before the Emperor had learnt enough to practise the art without his aid.’

Shaikh Salim had, he declared, gone more than twenty times on pilgrimage to the tomb of the holy prophet; and was not much pleased to have his repose so much disturbed by the noise and bustle of the imperial court.  At last, Akbar wanted to surround the hill with regular fortifications, and the Shaikh could stand it no longer.[20] ‘Either you or I must leave this hill,’ said he to the Emperor; ’if the efficacy of my prayers is no longer to be relied upon, let me depart in peace.’  ‘If it be your majesty’s will,’ replied the Emperor, ‘that one should go, let it be your slave, I pray.’  The old story:  ’There is nothing like relying upon the efficacy of our prayers,’ say the priests, ’Nothing like relying upon that of our sharp swords,’ say the soldiers; and, as nations advance from barbarism, they generally contrive to divide between them the surplus produce of the land and labour of society.

The old hermit consented to remain, and pointed out Agra as a place which he thought would answer the Emperor’s purpose extremely well.  Agra, then an unpeopled waste, soon became a city, and Fathpur-Sikri was deserted.[21] Cities which, like this, are maintained by the public establishments that attend and surround the courts of sovereign princes, must always, like this, become deserted when these sovereigns change their resting-places.  To the history of the rise and progress, decline and fall, of how many cities is this the key?