Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/364



a broad plate of iron, covering the whole sole of the foot, with the exception of the frog.

"What I have said of the Afghāns of Candahar will apply to all we have seen; but perhaps at Cabul the men may be shorter and more thickly set. I have never seen a more hardy, sturdy-looking, or more muscular race, and the deep pomegranate complexion gives a manly expression to the countenance. Of the women we have seen nothing, but hear they are beautiful; those taken at Ghuznee were certainly not so; they are frequently met walking in the city, or riding on horseback seated behind a man, but universally so closely veiled that you cannot detect a feature of the face, or in the slightest degree trace the outline of the figure. It is a pity Dost Muhammad was not selected as our puppet king, for Shah Sūjah is neither a gentleman nor a soldier, and he is highly unpopular among his subjects, who—but for our support—would soon knock him off his perch.

"My squadron was on picquet near a village surrounded with gardens, with a clear rapid stream of water running through it; and in this village, between two or three miles north-east of Ghuznee, is the tomb of the great Shah Mahmoud, which has stood upwards of eight hundred years, and which is an object of particular veneration to all true believers. The entrance from the village is by a low coarse door-way, which leads to a small garden; a paved footway conducts to an arched building, undeserving of notice: on either side the footpath are hollowed figures of sphinxes in white marble, and seemingly of great antiquity, and through these sphinxes water used to flow from the mouth; above them also, there were other small fountains. From the building I have mentioned, a rudely constructed vault or passage—a kind of cloister—leads to another small garden, at the end of which stands the mausoleum of the Sultan Mahmoud, the doors of which are said to have been brought by the Sultan as a trophy from the famous Hindoo temple of Somnaut, in Guzerat, which he sacked in his last expedition to India; they are of sandal-wood, curiously carved, and, considering their very great age, in fine preservation,