twenty-four faces in the form of convex
flutings, alternately semicircular and rectangular, built of
alternate courses of marble and red sandstone. The second story
is 51 feet high and the projections are all semicircular; the
third story is 41 feet and the projections are all rectangular;
the fourth, 26 feet high, is a plain cylinder, and the fifth or
top story, 25 feet high, is partly fluted and partly plain. The
mean diameter of each story is exactly one-fifth of its height,
and the material is alternate courses of marble and red sandstone,
the entire exterior surface being incrusted with inscriptions from
the Koran, sculptured in sharp relief. It has been compared for
beauty of design and perfection of proportions to the Campanile
at Florence, but that is conventional in every respect, while
the Kutab Minar is unique. The sculptures that cover its surface
have been compared to those upon the column of Trajan in Rome and
the Column Vendome in Paris, but they are intended to relate the
military triumphs of the men in whose honor they were erected, while
the inscription upon the Kutab Minar is a continuous recognition
of the power and glory of God and the virtues of Mahomet, His
prophet.

Whichever way you look, whichever way you drive, in that
extraordinary place, you find artistic taste, the religious devotion,
the love of conquest and the military genius of the Mohammedans
combined and perpetuated in noble forms. The camel driver of
Mecca, like the founder of Christianity, was a teacher of peace
and an example of humility, but his followers have been famous
for their pride, their brilliant achievements, their audacity
and their martial violence and success. The fortresses scattered
over the plain bear testimony to their fighting qualities, and
are an expression of their authority and power; their gilded
palaces and jeweled thrones testify to their luxurious taste
and artistic sentiment, while the massive mausoleums which arise
in every direction testify to their pride and their determination
that posterity shall not forget their names. I have told you in
a previous chapter about the tomb of Humayun, the son of Baber
(the Lion of the Faith), who transmitted to a long line of Moguls
the blood of conquerors. But it is only one of several noble
examples of architecture and pretensions, and as evidence of
the human sympathies of the man who built it, the tomb of his
barber is near by.

About a mile across the plain