Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/365



although they have in two or three places been coarsely repaired with common wood. These doors are, I should think, about twelve feet high and fifteen feet broad; and are held in such estimation, though it is upwards of eight hundred years since they were removed from Guzerat, that, it is said, Runjeet Singh made it one of his conditions to assist Shah Sūjah in a former expedition, that he should give up the sandal-wood gates; but this was indignantly rejected. In truth, I saw nothing particular about these doors, and if I had not been told of their age, and of their being of sandal-wood, I should have passed, taking them for deal, and merely observed their carving. Over the doors are a very large pair of stag's horns (spiral), and four knobs of mud, which are the wonder of all true Musalmāns, who firmly believe in the miracle of their having remained uninjured and unrepaired for so many centuries. The mausoleum itself can boast of no architectural beauty, and is very coarsely constructed. The tombstone is of white marble, on which are sculptured Arabic verses from the korān, and various coloured flags are suspended over it, so as to protect it from dust. Against the wall at the head of the tomb is nailed up the largest tiger's skin I ever saw, though it had evidently been stretched lengthwise. When the picquet was relieved I rode into Ghuznee by the Cabul road, by the side of which, at some distance from each other, are two lofty minarets,—one, I should think, one hundred, and the other one hundred and twenty feet in height: these are built of variously-shaped bricks, elaborately worked in various devices: the base of both these pillars is octangular, and rises to half the height, looking as if it had been built round the pillar itself, which is circular; or as if the pillar had been stuck into this case: the easternmost pillar is the highest and most elaborately decorated. I think I before observed that these minarets at a distance look like prodigious eau-de-cologne bottles. The mausoleum of Sultan Mahmoud, and these minarets, are now the only remains of the ancient city of Ghuznee; and nothing further exists to show the magnificence of the Ghuznee kings, or to mark the former site