the
point of its arch, a mystic tiger, carved on the face of a stone slab,
holding in its right forepaw some animal, which the _Gazetteer_
declares is an elephant but which more closely resembles a dog. The tiger
on the left of the arch alone abides in its place; the other lies on the
ground at the threshold of the gate. Local wiseacres believe the tiger to
have been the crest of the Killedar who built the gate and to have
signified to the public of those lawless days much the same as the famous
escutcheon in "Marmion," with its legend, "who laughs at me to Death is
dight!"

The Saint's gate, so called from the tomb of a "Pir" hidden in the
surrounding growth of prickly pear, is the largest of all the gates and is
formed of splendid slabs of dressed stone, each about 8 feet in length. On
either side of the gateway are rectangular recesses, which were doubtless
used as dwellings or guardrooms by the soldiers in charge of the gate.
Thence the pathway divides; one track, intended for cavalry, leading round
to the north-western side of the hill, and the other for foot-passengers,
composed of rock-hewn steps and passing directly upwards to the Shivabai
gate, where still hangs the great teak-door, studded with iron spikes,
against which the mad elephants of an opposing force might fruitlessly hurl
their titanic bulk.

Leaving for a moment the direct path, which climbs to the crest of the hill
past the Buddhist caves and cisterns, we walk along a dainty terrace lined
with champak and sandalwood trees and passing under a carved stone gateway
halt before the shrine dedicated to Shivaji's family goddess. The dark
inner shrine must have once been a Buddhist cave, carved out of the wall of
rock; and to it later generations added the outer hall, with its carved
pillars of teakwood, which hangs over the very edge of a precipitous
descent. Repairs to the shrine are at present in progress; and on the day
of our visit two bullocks were tethered in the outer chamber, the materials
of the stone-mason were lying here and there among the carved pillars, and
a painfully modern stone wall is rising in face of the austere threshold of
the inner sanctuary. The lintel of the shrine is surmounted with inferior
coloured pictures of Hindu deities, and two printed and tolerably faithful
portraits of the great Maratha chieftain. "Thence," in the words of the
poet, "we turned and slowly clomb the last hard footstep of that iron
crag," and traversing