the authorities of both governments. Long caravans still
cross the desert of middle Asia, enter and leave India through
this pass and follow the Grand Trunk Road to the cities of the
Ganges. It is always thronged with pilgrims and commerce; with
trains of bullock carts, caravans of camels and elephants, and
thousands of pedestrians pass every milestone daily. Kipling
describes them and the road in "Kim" in more graphic language
than flows through my typewriter. In the neighborhood of Delhi
the Grand Trunk Road is like the Appian Way of Rome, both sides
being lined with the mausoleums of kings, warriors and saints in
various stages of decay and dilapidation. And scattered among
them are the ruins of the palaces of supplanted dynasties which
appeared and vanished, arose and fell, one after another, in
smoke and blood; with the clash of steel, the cries of victory
and shrieks of despair.

In the center of the court of the ancient mosque of Kutbul Islam,
which was originally built for a Hindu temple in the tenth century,
stands a wrought-iron column, one of the most curious things
in India. It rises 23 feet 8 inches above the ground, and its
base, which is bulbous, is riveted to two stone slabs two feet
below the surface. Its diameter at the base is 16 feet 4 inches
and at the capital is 12 inches. It is a malleable forging of
pure iron, without alloy, and 7.66 specific gravity. According
to the estimates of engineers, it weighs about six tons, and it
is remarkable that the Hindus at that age could forge a bar of
iron larger and heavier than was ever forged in Europe until a
very recent date. Its history is deeply cut upon its surface in
Sanskrit letters. The inscription tells us that it is "The Arm
of Fame of Raja Dhava," who subdued a nation named the Vahlikas,
"and obtained, with his own arm, undivided sovereignty upon the
earth for a long period." No date is given, but the historians
fix its erection about the year 319 or 320 A. D. This is the
oldest and the most unique of all the many memorials in India,
and has been allowed to stand about 1,700 years undisturbed.
An old prophecy declared that Hindu sovereigns would rule as
long as the column stood, and when the empire was invaded in
1200 and Delhi became the capital of a Mohammedan empire, its
conqueror, Kutb-ud-Din (the Pole Star of the Faith), originally
a Turkish slave, defied it by allowing the pillar to remain,
but he converted the beautiful Hindu temple whic