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The whole exterior is fluted from the bottom to the top, narrowing gradually as it ascends, and affording a good view of the present Delhi, twelve miles away, while it overlooks that broad region of dead and buried cities. Though the Katub Minar has stood for so many centuries, not the least crack in the masonry can be discovered, either inside or out.
Standing on the temporary tower which marks this centre one is able to see in a few moments all the ruined cities that I have mentioned. The Kutb Minar is the most important landmark in the far south, although the eye rests most lovingly on the red and white comeliness of the tomb of Safdar Jang in the middle distance which, with Humayun's Tomb, makes a triangle with the new Government House.
Another half-hour's riding brought them into sight of a magnificent shaft of masonry, rising far above the plain. "That is the Minar," Captain Hodgson said; "it is the same word as minaret. Is it not magnificent?" The Kotub Minar is an immense shaft tapering gradually toward the top. It is built in stages, with a gallery round each. Each stage is different.
The speech of the people, too, is picturesque beyond that of almost any other folk, as readers of Kipling have come to know. It is very common for a beggar to call out, "Oh, Protector of the Poor, you are my father and mother, help me, help me." "I salute you," said our old guide at the Kutab Minar, speaking in his native Hindustani, which my friend interpreted for me.
This minar of Koutab's it was erected by the Mussulman general Koutab-Oudeen-Eibeg in the year 1200 to commemorate his success over the Rajpút emperor Pirthi-Raj is two hundred and twenty feet high, and the cunning architect who designed it managed to greatly intensify its suggestion of loftiness by its peculiar shape.
Tughlakabad lies five miles east of Kutub Minar; the fort is so high and massive as to be seen long before the point is reached. The enclosure covers nearly four miles and contains a ruined mosque and palace. Outside the wall is the tomb of Tujlak Shah; it is situated in an artificial lake, and is connected with the fort by a causeway, six hundred feet long and supported on twenty-seven arches.
Babar's account of the commencement of it is very characteristic: "On Thursday, the 4th of the latter Rebia, I directed Chikmak Bey, by a writing under the royal hand and seal, to measure the distance from Agra to Kabul; that at every nine kos he should raise a minar, or turret, twelve gez in height, on the top of which he was to construct a pavilion; that every ten kos he should erect a yam, or post-house, which they call a dak-choki, for six horses; that he should fix a certain allowance as a provision for the post-house keepers, couriers, and grooms, and for feeding the horses; and orders were given that whenever a post-house for horses was built near a khalseh, or imperial demesne, they should be furnished from thence with the stated allowances; that if it were situated in a pergunna, the nobleman in charge should attend to the supply.
A day's visit to old Delhi was most interesting; it is a ride of eleven miles to Kutub Minar, through sand and debris, comprising a portion of an area of forty-seven miles, covered with the remains of seven, once prosperous, cities.
The walls of the building are of purplish red standstone, of very fine grain, almost as fine as marble, and age and exposure seem to have hardened it. In one corner of the court of this great mosque rises the Kutab Minar, a monument and tower of victory. It is supposed to have been originally started by the Hindus and completed by their Mohammedan conquerors.
Shows, too, the plains outside the city, and here and there a hand's-breadth of the Ravee without the walls. Shows lastly, a splash of glittering silver on a house-top almost directly below the mosque Minar. Some poor soul has risen to throw a jar of water over his fevered body; the tinkle of the falling water strikes faintly on the ear.
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