Page:ER Scidmore--Winter India.djvu/296

274 to a shelter sufficient for Buddha when he appeared to foretell the coming of Kanishka, according to another version. At any rate, it was a pipul-tree of uncommon size, and held in such esteem that the conquering Baber, the Bokharan, saw and described it when he came this way in 1505. All this Peshawar plain has yielded rich store of Buddhist relics, records, sculptures, and inscriptions, including the finest examples shown in the Lahore and Calcutta museums and in London.

The holy spot of Peshawar, in these modern times, is the jail, where so many hillside saints from the border have been put for stalking British sentries, sniping stragglers, and inciting the tribesmen to mischief and revolt in the name of the Prophet, that the great barred building is crowded at times with these vagabonds. As the abode of saints, the building has all the sacredness and vogue of a temple, and is a place of popular pilgrimage. Fanatic Mohammedans have even committed petty crimes in bazaar and cantonment for the sole purpose of gaining admission to this saints' abode and rest: and, with such crazy people to deal with, one may well admire the spectacle of England's humane and patient rule on the border.

From the top of the city wall near the old temple there was a fine view of the city, the hazy, lilac plain, and the snow-striped mountains just showing through the clouds of mingled dust and frost-haze on the Jamrud road. The rugged mountains rose and grew sharper in outline as the sun fell, one higher and whiter peak marking where the Khyber