Page:The Seven Cities of Delhi.djvu/69

 Kutb Road. — A road crosses the railway opposite the Ajmere Gate, and joins a road leading to the Kutb Minar ; this at first runs through mean streets, and then past some gardens, rather different in their arrangement to those of the West. Then the road passes between some mounds, which are native brick-kilns.

Jantar Mantar (p. 131). — At the third milestone there appears on the left a curious group of buildings, the observatory of Maharaja Jai Singh, of Jaipur, who constructed them, at the bidding of the Emperor Mahomed Shah, about the be- ginning of the eighteenth century. There are here a masonry gnomon, which threw its shadow on a marble dial (long since gone), a small altitude meter, and two round amphitheatres, in which directions and heights of stars could be observed. Some have stigmatized this group as a "folly," and the rustic name of "Jantar Mantar," an alliterative corruption of "Semrat Yantar," has possibly lent colour to this view ; but it is a scientific work which demands respect.

Tombs of Lodi King's (p. 128).— On the right are low hills, which are the continuation of the Ridge, and run right away through Rajputana, as far as the Nerbudda River. Further on, a branch juts out to the east, and on