own 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 Diw