CHAPTER XVII
OLD DELHI
NE gets the full sense of antiquity in driving south from Delhi for eleven miles over a plain strewn with the ruins of seven earlier cities that preceded this modern Delhi, or Shah Jahanabad. Dwellings have crumbled away, but forts and tombs have withstood the ages, and there is a very feast of graveyards all the way to the Kutab minar. Hoariest of all the memorials is the carved stone column of Asoka (240 b.c.), inscribed with the Buddha's precepts against the taking of life, and which stands in Tughlak's ruined fort at Firozabad. At ruined Indrapat are the remains of the lovely inlaid mosque and the tall tower from which the emperor Humayum fell while studying the stars; and near by is the splendid red sandstone mausoleum erected for him by his widow and his son Akbar. A century after its erection, this domed tomb of Humayum furnished the model for the Taj Mahal, and one quickly notes the main points of resemblance between this massive red building and the white dream at Agra. Humayum's tomb stands upon the same sort of high platform, but lacks the slender minarets
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