ceiling decorations of mirrors and stucco traceries, and surrounded by shiny, chunam-covered arches, is a raised marble platform, on which are carved in relief twelve lotuses, the central flower being larger than those surrounding. Beneath lie the ashes of the great Sikh chieftain Ranjit Singh, and those of the four wives and seven concubines who committed satí on his

funeral pyre.

The Adi Granth is read daily in this Samadh, scarce a stone's throw from the humble shrine of its composer, the Guru Arjan, who died in prison at Lahore during the reign of Jahángír.

Within the limits of the citadel are some of the oldest buildings in Lahore. Akbar's Palace, to which Jahángír, Aurangzeb and the Sikhs made additions, is striking chiefly for the grotesque figures of men and animals, worked in mosaic, with which the facade is inlaid. Cherubs, precisely similar to those commonly represented in Christian churches, adorn the portion of the palace attributed to Jahángír, who was suspected of having a leaning toward Christianity, and is known to have worn a crucifix and rosary.

Sentries stand at the entrance, and pace the court. and corridor of the Moti Masjid. This because it is the local treasury of the British, as it was of Ranjít Singh before them. Before recent alterations were made, a court used to give access to the Shish Mahál, or Palace of Mirrors, in which Ranjít held receptions, and from the windows of which he could look over

the plain where his troops were wont to assemble for review.

It was here that the sovereignty of the Punjab was formally ceded to the British. Dhulíp Singh was only fourteen years of age then, and in no way responsible for the denouement brought about by the ten years of anarchy under the regency of his uncles. The Government assigned a liberal pension to the boy, and undertook his education. Dr. John Logan, of the Medical Service, was appointed guardian, and Mr. Guise, of the Civil Service, tutor to the little prince. At eighteen years of age he foreswore the religion of his ancestors and became the first Christian of royal blood in India. Shortly afterwards he went to England, where he settled down and died. His son, Prince Victor Albert Jay Dhulíp Singh is a thorough Englishman, and a keen sportsman. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he holds a commission in the Royal Dragoons, and is married to a daughter of the Earl of Coventry. The wheel of Fate surely makes few stranger turns than this.

Near the Shish Mahál is the exquisite pavilion called the Naulakha, a name which Kipling has borrowed for one of his best known novels. The word is a compound, signifying nine (nau) lakhs (lakha), and has reference to the cost of the building, which was nine hundred thousand rupees. Its walls are beautifully inlaid with flowers wrought in precious stones. On one side the pillars of the quadrangle have been connected by walls so as

to form an armory. apartment contains the battle-axe and rhinoceros-hide shield of Guru Govind; some specimens of the chakra, or quoit-like steel ring, used as a weapon from time immemorial in India, and sometimes worn in miniature by the Sikhs in their turbans; curious cannon with revolving barrels, camel guns, coats of mail, cuirasses, and swords of various kinds.

Among many curiosities this

About six miles to the east of the city, approached by a road which passes Sultán Beg's "Rose Garden," with its wondrous gateway, are the Shalimar Gardens, laid out in 1637 by Shah Jahán. The gardens cover an area of about eighty acres, surrounded by a wall, with a large gateway and pavilions at each corner. They are traversed by artificial streams, and contain hundreds of fountains. The flower-beds are laid out with a geometrical precision that betrays a modern hand, and the general appearance suggests deterioration, but it must have been an extremely lovely spot at the time when the Great Mughal and his court sought the summer evening breezes beneath its mango trees. In the neighborhood are several other gardens, more or less neglected, and the mausoleum of the famous engineer Alí Mardan Khán, who designed the Shalimar Gardens.

A notable trio are buried out at Sháhdra, beyond the Rávi. Jahángír's mausoleum is one of the bestpreserved buildings of Lahore, but even it has suffered considerably at the hands of successive

depredators. Aurangzeb removed the marble dome which once surmounted it. The neighboring tomb of Núr Mahal is in ruins, and that of Asof Khán, the brother-in-law of Jahángír and the father-in-law of Sháh Jahán, was stripped of its marble facings and colored enamels by the Sikhs. The real wonder is that they allowed the Mughal tombs to stand.

A white marble archway, fifty feet in height, opens upon the garden-court of Jahángír's mausoleum, which is approached over a pavement of finely-veined Jaipur marble. On the right of the entrance is a stairway leading to the roof, whose flat surface is covered with a tesselated pavement. The square roof was surrounded by a marble parapet, but Ranjít removed it for use elsewhere. At each corner a four-storied minaret, constructed of enormous blocks of stone, rises to an altitude of ninety-five feet. The cenotaph is of white marble, inlaid with what is one of the best specimens of pietra dura work to be found in India. The ninety-nine names of Allah are carved in beautiful black marble script, and the south side bears the inscription, "The Glorious Tomb of His High Majesty, Asylum of Protectors, Nuru-dín Muhammad, the Emperor Jahángír."

CHAPTER IV.

ANCIENT DELHI.

IF we trace the history of Delhi towards its beginnings, we are carried into the remote and hazy pastat least fifteen hundred years before the Christian era, when the Aryan pioneers had wrested from the primeval jungle scarce more than a scanty clearing here and there. One of these was Hastinapur, whence the Pandavas led their followers to take possession of the forest land newly assigned to them. The Hindu Iliad tells how they cleared the country, and built the city of Indraprastha, the site of which is identified with ruins lying to the south of Delhi.

From that time great capitals have succeeded one another here in continuous course of rise and decay, so that the whole country for ten or more miles around the modern Delhi is covered with the débris of ruined cities, closely lying over well nigh fifty square miles.

Under Yudishthira, the eldest of the Pandu brothers, Indraprastha grew into the metropolis of a kingdom powerful enough to enable the Pandavas to turn their arms against the Kauravas, with whom

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