ave expression to their own sense of beauty and taste when by
the erection of these temples they sought to honor and glorify
the gods to whom they pray.

Ajmere, the winter capital of the governor general of Rajputana,
is one of the oldest and most beautiful cities of western India,
having been founded only a hundred years after the beginning of
the Christian era, and occupying a picturesque position in an
amphitheater made by the mountains, 3,000 feet above the sea.
It is protected by a stone wall, with five gateways; many of the
residences and most of the buildings are of stone, with ornamental
facades, and some of them are of great antiquity. In the olden
days it was the fashion to build houses to last forever. Ajmere
has a population of about 70,000. It is surrounded by a fertile
country, occupied by an industrious, wealthy, and prosperous
people. The city is commanded by a fortress that crowns a noble
hill called "The Home of the Stars," possesses a mosque that
is one of the most successful combinations of Hindu and Saracenic
architecture of which I have spoken, the conception of some unknown
genius, combining the Mohammedan ideas of grandeur with Hindu
delicacy of taste and prodigality of detail. In its decorations
may be found some of the most superb marble embroidery that the
imagination can conceive of. One of the highest authorities dates
its erection as far back as the second century before Christ, but
it is certainly of a much later date. Some architects contend that
it belongs to the fourteenth century; it is however, considered
the finest specimen of early Mohammedan architecture in existence.
The mosque can be compared to a grand salon, open to the air at
one side, the ceiling, fifty feet high, supported by four rows
of columns, eighteen in each row, which are unique in design, and
no two of them are alike. The designs are complex and entirely
novel, and each is the work of a different artist, who was allowed
entire liberty of design and execution, and endeavored to surpass
his rivals.

There are several other mosques and temples of great beauty in
Ajmere, and some of them are sacred places that attract multitudes
of pilgrims, who are fed daily by the benevolence of rich
contributors. Enormous rice puddings are cooked in eight enormous
earthen caldrons, holding several bushels each, which are ready
at noon every day. The composition contains rice, butter, sugar,
almonds, raisins and spices, and to fil