they had a heavy score of long standing to settle. Them they overthrew, and so became masters of all the settled country to the east.

The memorable conflict, the first decisive battle in Indian history, was probably fought on the flat, featureless plain in the neighborhood of Delhi, which has been the scene of many a fierce encounter. It was on the famous field of Pánípat that Akbar, then but a boy, gave battle to the Pathán army, despite the counsels of his omráhs, who would have retired. It was on the plain of Pánípat that the Afghán and Maráthá hosts contested for the supremacy of India. Prodigies of valor were performed in that, perhaps, the bloodiest hour in the history of the world.

Yudishthira was succeeded on the throne of Indraprastha by thirty direct descendants, until the line was overthrown by Visarwa, Minister of the last Pandavit sovereign. This dynasty held the throne for five hundred years, and was followed, "with the usual symmetry of Indian mythical lore," by a dynasty of fifteen Gautamas.

And so through tradition we arrive at the first century before Christ, when the word Dillipur appears in authentic history as the name of a city situated about five miles below the present Delhi. Ferishta attributes the foundation of this original Delhi to Rájá Dilhu, the last ruler of the Mayura dynasty. The earliest recorded information on the subject is derived from the celebrated iron pillar set up by Rájá

Dháva, some time in the third or fourth century of

the present era.

Tradition, which is, however, refuted by the unimpeachable authority of the inscription, refers the pillar to Anang Pál, and a fanciful story, which pretends to account for the origin of the name of the city, is told in connection with its erection. According to this legend, a Bráhman saint assured the rájá that the pillar had been driven so far into the earth as to become immovable, fixed in the head of Vasuki, the serpent king, who supports the world, and that so long as the pillar stood, the dynasty of its founder would survive. In a skeptical mood, Anang ordered the monument to be dug up, when clots of blood and hair upon its base proved the truth of the Brahman's assertion. But when an attempt was made to return the shaft to its place as before, it was found impossible to fix it, and so the pillar remained dhila, that is, loose in the ground-hence the name Delhi!

"In Sambat 1109 (1052 A.D.), Anang Pál peopled Dilli," rebuilt the city, and constructed extensive fortifications, whose remains form a great circle of massive masonry lying around the Kutab Minár.

The renowned Prithvi Rájá, last of the champions of Hindu independence, who was cold-bloodedly put to death by the cowardly Sháhab-ud-dín, erected a great wall, the remains of which may still be traced, about the entire extent of the city.

When the Túrkí Tughlak, profiting by the Hindu

revolt which followed the death of Alá-ud-dín, seized the Imperial City and the throne, Ghiyás-ud-dín, the first of his line, decided to remove the seat of government from Delhi, which was then a hotbed of Hindu intrigue and insurrection. He laid out a new capital at Tughlakábád, on a rocky eminence about four miles to the east of the modern Delhi. The remains of a massive citadel, and deserted streets and lanes, still mark the spot; but save for a few goat-herds, no human being inhabits these vast and desolate ruins.

Firoz Shah Tughlak removed the metropolis to Firozábád. The city has disappeared, like its forerunners, but traces of it may be found along the ground extending from Humayun's tomb to the ridge. The same Firoz brought from Khizrábád, and set up here, the pink sandstone pillar of Asoka, which the natives called "Firoz Sháh's Club.”

being to Shah Jahán, the

Under his direction rose

The present city owes its greatest builder of them all. the fort on the right bank of the Jumna, with its five mile circuit of lofty wall. He called the city Sháhjahánábád, but the name Delhi was too dear to the Hindu to die.

The roads running south from the Delhi and Ajmír Gates form sides of a triangle, with Tughlakábád and the Kutab Minár at either end of the base. The section thus enclosed is closely packed with ruins of ancient cities and monuments, tombs of royal person

ages and of saints, mosques, memorial pillars, a vast conglomeration of remains in various stages of decay. The history of Hindustán for the past two thousand years might almost be educed from the clues this district affords.

In the apex of the triangle are the vestiges of the city which the Tughlak Emperor, Firoz Sháh, built in the fourteenth century. It extended northward over the ground later covered by Shahjahánábád. All that remains of it is a memory suggested by a heap of rubbish. But there is more to perpetuate the name of its founder. The three-storied Kotila near the Jumma still supports the Asoka pillar which Firoz brought from the Siwalik Hills. William Finch, who visited the place in 1611, describes the pillar as passing from the ground up through the three stories of the building and rising twenty-four feet above the roof, and having on the top a globe with a crescent. It is now something short of forty-three feet in total height, and terminates in a splintered top, a considerable portion having been broken off. There are a number of inscriptions on the shaft, which have been engraved at different times, but its glory lies in the Asoka Buddhistic edict set forth in Páli script, the oldest characters known to India.

The crumbling walls of the ancient fort of Indrapat mark the site of Indraprastha. Near by is a fine red sandstone mosque, built by the Pathán Shir Shah in 1541.

Its walls are inlaid with marble and covered