74 



AFOOT THROUGH THE 



Takht-i-Suleiman, which, perched above the city, keeps 

 guard over the inhabitants. As an antiquity, I own 

 to having found it a very considerable fraud, for its great 

 age, on inquiry, reduces itself to a possible 300 B.C. 

 (generally considered incorrect), or a probable 300 A.D., 

 and that is only the date of the outer wall and the 

 plinth. The upper structure is remarkably ugly, and 

 quite modern (that is, seventeenth century). I visited 

 it on various occasions, and found naught to admire 



Takht - i - Suleiman 



save the glorious views to be obtained from it. Learned 

 archaeologists may be able to argue much from the small 

 scraps of the earlier buildings ; to me they were merely 

 rough blocks of limestone. The temple is a very popular 

 place of pilgrimage, crowds every Thursday mounting 

 the steep rock on which it stands one thousand feet 

 above the Dal Lake. I approached it from different 

 sides, but none of the routes are very pleasant, and as 



