on which
has now swallowed up the less substantial remains of what was once a
populous and wealthy city. The Ghuris came from Afghanistan, and the
great mosque of Hushang Ghuri--in spite of inscriptions which say in
one place that it has been modelled on the mosque of the Kaaba at Mecca,
and in another place on the great mosque at Damascus--is perhaps the
finest example of pure Pathan architecture in India, and one of the
half-dozen noblest shrines devoted to Mahomedan worship in the whole
world; a mighty structure of red sandstone and white marble, stern and
simple, and as perfect in the proportions of its long avenues of pointed
arches as in the breadth of its spacious design. Behind it, under a
great dome of white marble, Hushang himself sleeps. Unique in its way,
too, is the lofty hall of the Hindola Mahal, with its steeply sloping
buttresses--a hall which has not been inaptly compared to the great
dining-hall of some Oxford or Cambridge College--and alongside of it,
the more delicate beauty, perhaps already suggestive of Hindu
collaboration, of the Jahaz Mahal, another palace with hanging balconies
and latticed windows of carved stone overlooking on either side an
artificial lake covered with pink lotus blossoms. Mandu was at first an
essentially Mahomedan city, and under Mahmud Khilji, who wrested the
throne from Hushang's effete successor, its fame as a centre of Islamic
learning attracted embassies even from Egypt and Bokhara. But its
greatness was short-lived. Mahmud's son, Ghijas-ud-Din, had been for
many years his father's right hand, both in council and in the field.
But no sooner did he come to the throne in 1469 than he discharged all
the affairs of the state on to his own son and retired into the
seraglio, where 15,000 women formed his court and provided him even with
a bodyguard. Five hundred beautiful young Turki women, armed with bows
and arrows, stood, we are told, on his right hand, and, on his left,
five hundred Abyssinian girls. Profligate succeeded profligate, and the
degeneracy of his Mahomedan rulers was the Hindu's opportunity. The
power passed into the hands of Hindu officers, who were even suffered to
take unto themselves mistresses from among the Mahomedan women of the
court. The end came, after many vicissitudes, with Baz Bahadur, chiefly
known for his passionate devotion to the fair Hindu, Rup Mati, for whom
he built on the very crest of the hill, so that from her windows she
might worship