’What the people relate about the “kili” (pillar) having been stuck into the head of the snake that supports the world, sir, is nothing more than a simple historical fact known to everybody.  Is it not so, my brothers?’ turning to the Hindoo sipahis and followers around us, who all declared that no fact could ever be better established.

‘When the Raja,’ continued the old soldier, ’had got the pillar fast into the head of the snake, he was told by his chief priest that his dynasty must now reign over Hindustan for ever.  “But,” said the Raja, “as all seems to depend upon the pillar being on the head of the snake, we had better see that it is so with our own eyes.”  He ordered it to be taken up; the clergy tried to dissuade him, but all in vain.  Up it was taken—­the flesh and blood of the snake were found upon it--the pillar was replaced; but a voice was heard saying:  “Thy want of faith hath destroyed thee—­thy reign must soon end, and with it that of thy race."’

I asked the old soldier from whence the voice came.

He said this was a point that had not, he believed, been quite settled.  Some thought it was from the serpent himself below the earth, others that it came from the high priest or some of his clergy.  ‘Wherever it came from,’ said the old man, ’there is no doubt that God decreed the Raja’s fall for his want of faith; and fall he did soon after.’  All our followers concurred in this opinion, and the old man seemed quite delighted to think that he had had an opportunity of delivering his sentiments upon so great a question before so respectable an audience.

The Emperor Shams-ud-din Iltutmish is said to have designed this great Muhammadan church at the suggestion of Khwaja Kutb-ud-din, a Muhammadan saint from Ush in Persia, who was his religious guide and apostle, and died some sixteen years before him.[29] His tomb is among the ruins of this old city.  Pilgrims visit it from all parts of India, and go away persuaded that they shall have all they have asked, provided they have given or promised liberally in a pure spirit of faith in his influence with the Deity.  The tomb of the saint is covered with gold brocade, and protected by an awning—­those of the Emperors around it he naked and exposed.  Emperors and princes lie all around him; and their tombs are entirely disregarded by the hundreds that daily prostrate themselves before his, and have been doing so for the last six hundred years.[30] Among the rest I saw here the tomb of Mu’azzam, alias Bahadur Shah, the son and successor of Aurangzeb, and that of the blind old Emperor Shah Alam, from whom the Honourable Company got their Diwani grant.[31] The grass grows upon the slab that covers the remains of Mu’azzam, the most learned, most pious, and most amiable, l believe, of the crowned descendants of the great Akbar.  These kings and princes all try to get a place as near as they can to the remains of such old saints, believing that the ground is more holy than any other, and that they may give them a lift on the day of resurrection.  The heir apparent to the throne of Delhi visited the tomb the same day that I did.  He was between sixty and seventy years of age.[32]