Persia, and is considered by his greatest admirers to have been in his youth a robber, it is not impossible that he may have been originally one of the ‘assassins’, or disciples of the ’old man of the mountains’, and that he may have set up the system of Thuggee in India and derived a great portion of his income from it.[13] Emperors now prostrate themselves, and aspire to have their bones placed near it [scil. the tomb].  While wandering about the ruins, I remarked to one of the learned men of the place who attended us that it was singular Tughlak’s buildings should be so rude compared with those of Iltutmish, who had reigned more than eighty years before him.[14] ‘Not at all singular,’ said he, ’was he not under the curse of the holy saint Nizam-ud-din?’ ’And what had the Emperor done to merit the holy man’s curse?’ ’He had taken by force to employ upon his palaces several of the masons whom the holy man was employing upon a church,’ said he.

The Kutb Minar was, I think, more beyond my expectations than the Taj; first, because I had heard less of it; and secondly, because it stands as it were alone in India—­there is absolutely no other tower in this Indian empire of ours.[15]

Large pillars have been cut out of single stones, and raised in different parts of India to commemorate the conquests of Hindoo princes, whose names no one was able to discover for several centuries, till an unpretending English gentleman of surprising talents and industry, Mr. James Prinsep, lately brought them to light by mastering the obsolete characters in which they and their deeds had been inscribed upon them.[16] These pillars would, however, be utterly insignificant were they composed of many stones.  The knowledge that they are cut out of single stones, brought from a distant mountain, and raised by the united efforts of multitudes when the mechanical arts were in a rude state, makes us still view them with admiration.[17] But the single majesty of this Minar of Kutb-ud-din, so grandly conceived, so beautifully proportioned, so chastely embellished, and so exquisitely finished, fills the mind of the spectator with emotions of wonder and delight; without any such aid, he feels that it is among the towers of the earth what the Taj is among the tombs—­something unique of its kind that must ever stand alone in his recollections.[18]

It is said to have taken forty-four years in building, and formed the left of two ‘minars’ of a mosque.  The other ‘minar’ was never raised, but this has been preserved and repaired by the liberality of the British Government.[19] It is only 242 feet high, and 106 feet in circumference at the base.  It is circular, and fluted vertically into twenty-seven semicircular and angular divisions.  There are four balconies, supported upon large stone brackets, and surrounded with battlements of richly cut stone, to enable people to walk round the tower with safety.  The first is ninety feet from the base, the second fifty feet further up, the third