lama], to whom it owes its position in the forefront of provincial museums. Ajaib Garh, the "Wonder House," is the expressive name the natives have for it. Much time and labor must have been expended in the collection and orderly arrangement of the extensive specimens of the manufactures, arts and products of the Punjab. The catalogue is a perfect inventory of the assets of the "pauper province." But it is in the archæological department that one is most tempted to linger. Its greatest treasures are the sculptures, which aroused the lama to ecstacy; the heroic Buddhas which, together with other ancient relics, General Cunningham brought from the site of Taxila and other points in the northwest. There is a stone with an inscription connecting it with King Gondophares, under whom St. Thomas is supposed to have been martyred. There are pillars and fragments of a thousand and more years ago, and brass cannon which must have been among the earliest cast in India.

The mineral section contains a model of the Koh-iNúr, whose story is such a strange mixture of romance and myth. The Hindus maintain that it belonged to Karna, King of Anga, while the Persians claim that it, as well as the Darya-i-Núr, the "Sea of Light," as the other is the "Mountain of Light," adorned the head-dress of Afrasiyab. Yet another version, and the most likely one, gives its origin as Golconda, in Haidarábád. It is certain that the great stone found its way to the Persian capital with Nadír Sháh, after

the sack of Delhi, and that subsequently it fell into the hands of Ahmad Shah Duráni, from whose grandson Ranjit Singh took it.

At the entrance to the Museum stands the old bronze cannon, Zam-Zammeh, the "Roaring Lion." Kipling says: "Who hold Zam-Zammeh, that 'firebreathing dragon,' hold the Punjab; for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot." The old gun saw service at Pánípat, in the cause of Ahmad Shah Duráni, and was used by Ranjít at the siege of Múltán.

Because the spontaneous love of color is stronger than the cultivated taste for form, the streets and bazaars of an Indian city will always exercise a greater attraction for the traveler than its architectural features; but they defy description. The streets of the old town of Lahore are extremely picturesque, with their flat-roofed, irregular houses, whose square turrets and projecting balconies have not the slightest semblance of order or design, but look like so many packing-cases in haphazard heaps. The fronts present the greatest variety; many are carved and latticed, and some painted in floral designs.

The crowd upon the narrow streets is a mixed one, made up of many races, mostly big and bearded men, wearing various costumes, and displaying a mass of variegated color. The significant green of the Muhammadan, the blue of the Sikh and the saffron of the Hindu are but definite points in a mixture of all

the shades imaginable. Men, women and children— all are clad in gay raiment, and there is an appearance of perfect harmony in the restless, kaleidoscopic throng.

The hand of the vengeful Sikh and the coldblooded British official have left their disfiguring marks on the beautiful "Sleeping Palace" of Jahángír. The handsome, lofty pavilion in the Mughal style overlooking the Rávi, with its flanking chambers and finely-decorated verandas of Hindu architecture, is now used as a mess-room. Beneath this pavilion were the underground chambers to which the household retreated to avoid the mid-day heat. The large quadrangle once contained a garden, and was surrounded on three sides by a colonnade of red sandstone pillars, carved with figures of peacocks, elephants and griffins; but, with the aid of bricks and plaster, it has been converted into officers' quarters.

The Diwan-i-Ám, "Hall of Public Audience," has had its arches bricked in, and the whole has been whitewashed, the better to adapt it to its present use as a barrack. The beautiful white marble Diwan-iKhás, "Hall of Private Audience," has fared better, perhaps, in that it has been turned into a church.

One of the most beautiful and best preserved buildings in the city is the Mosque of Vazir Khán, standing in a square enclosure reached by a narrow lane. About the entrance congregate hawkers of every description, beggars, barbers, public scribes and

the great army of nondescripts who make up so large a proportion of the population of an Indian city.

Over the entrance to the mosque is the distich in Persian: "Remove thy heart from the world, and learn that the house of prayer is the fitting abode of man." On the front of the building is the Moslem creed, flanked by verses from the Kurán. The walls are covered with a peculiar mosaic of glazed tiles, into which the colors have been burnt by a process learned from the Persians, by whom it is called Nakkashi work. The effect is softer and more pleasing than that of the stone mosaic with surface coloring.

Thence for half a mile, along, perhaps, the most picturesque and crowded thoroughfare in Lahore, bounded by quaint houses, with curiously carved balconies, to the junction of two streets, in which favorable position stands the Sonai Masjid, with its three gilt domes. It was erected by Bikhwári Khán, whose affaire de cœur with the widowed ruler of Lahore ended in his being slippered to death by her

women.

At the northern extremity of the city, near the Fort, cluster a number of fine buildings in comparatively open ground. A pretty garden, on the east side of which runs the wall of the Fort, with Akbar's Gateway, forms an attractive approach to Aurangzeb's Mosque.

Built with blood-money by a fratricide, although the jamá, or chief, masjid of the city, it is not the most

popular. The building is imposing in appearance, but lacking in grace and the wealth of detail usually associated with Mughal architecture. It rises from a high platform, supported upon arches, and a grand flight of steps leads up to the entrance. Within are zealously guarded a number of sacred relics. There is a red hair from the Prophet's beard, the sole survivor of twelve, which, unlike the similar treasures of a celebrated shrine in the Deccan, evidently lacked the desirable property of multiplying. There are the

green turbans of Alí and his sons Husain and Hasan, and the prayer-carpet of his daughter Fatima. A decayed tooth and some earth from Karbelá are amongst several other highly cherished articles with sacred associations. The mosque has been allowed to fall into decay-perhaps on account of its unpopularity—and each of the four minarets is a ruin. The earthquake which damaged Kutab's Tower of Victory at Delhi so injured the cupolas of this structure that it became necessary to remove them.

In the centre of the garden is Ranjit's Barádari, built from the white marble of which the tombs of Jahangir and Núr Mahál were despoiled. It is the only one of his buildings that does not violate the canons of artistic taste.

In striking contrast with the stiff and gloomy mosque, almost within whose shadow it stands, is the square, white stucco Samadh of the "Lion of the Punjab," resting upon a marble platform. Beneath