solidly built tower that has stood there for a thousand years, enduring earthquakes and sieges, and restorations by the later Moguls. One has to mount the roof of the mosque and see the great shaft at the level of its lowest bands of ornament to realize its size and the beauty and sharpness of those bold letters. One willingly traverses rubbish-heaps to do homage to the builder, Kutab-uddin, the Pathan ruler, who rose from slavery to the throne, and who, before the completion of his Tower of Victory, was laid away. One feels a personal loss and deprivation, too, that Ala-uddin, two centuries later, did not finish his great minaret, which would have repeated the Kutab on larger lines, and mounted five hundred feet in air,—twice the height of the Kutab,—the entire surface faced with carved stones. Viewing the Kutab at close range and from afar, one remembers pityingly the campaniles and giraldas, obelisks, spires, and pinnacles of the West. They used to do this thing so much better in India.
The Kutab is so entirely the thing at Old Delhi, that one lags in enthusiasm over the mosque, with its ruined arches and its hundred carved columns, spoil of Buddhist and Jain temples that the Pathans destroyed. To-day interest in the mosque court centers in the wrought-iron column, whose Sanskrit inscription dates back to the first century of our era. Native tourists flock to it as the great sight, and believe that if one reaches around the column backward and touches his hands together, good luck will follow him. The tomb of Altamsh, who built the mosque, and the one remaining gate of the court
