1870. J Notes on Old Delhi. 77 



and project slightly beyond the line of the rest of the colonnade. 

 At the fonr corners of the tomb yard, are small circular towers sur- 

 mounted by low domes, built in the Hindu fashion, by layers of 

 stone projecting .one above the other. If the learned Sayyid have 

 rightly interpreted the inscriptions on this tomb, this will be, I 

 believe, the earliest in India of any interest in the eye of the histo- 

 rian. The popular name is probably a corruption either of the 

 word Ghori, a not inapplicable race-name to give to a son of 

 Altamsh, or is derived from the vault (jli, ghdr) in which the 

 tombs are built. 



At the south side of this tomb, and on the natural surface of the 

 ground, stand two monuments, each consisting of eight columns and 

 surmounted by domes. These tombs stand each in a small enclo- 

 sure, consisting of a low rough stone wall, entered on the east sides 

 by narrow gateways. These tombs, Sayyid Ahmad considers to be 

 those of Buknud-din, the son and successor of Altamsh, and of 

 Mu'izzud-din Bahram, another son of the same emperor. I presume, 

 he identifies these tombs from the account given of their repair by 

 Firuz Shah ; for there is not a vestige of inscription on or about the 

 tombs themselves, so far as I could discover. The pillars in the 

 more eastern tomb closely resemble those in Na^rud-din's. The 

 domes, as they exist at present, I have no doubt are the work of 

 Firuz Shah, who is said to have repaired both buildings, as their 

 shape and size points to a much later era than the Hindu-like 

 domes of their brother's tomb hard by ; and the rubble masonry of 

 which they are constructed, while quite in the style of Firuz Shah's 

 time, contrasts unnaturally with the massive stone slabs by which 

 the columns are surmounted. I greatly doubt if in the early portion 

 of the 13th century, the Pat'hans had acquired the art of surmoun- 

 ting a spacious building by a dome, and am inclined to believe that 

 they finished them off by a few projecting layers of stone, leaving 

 the centre open to the sky, much in fact as in the case of the tomb 

 of Shamsud-din Altamsh, which there appears to be little reason 

 for considering to have ever been domed over, Firuz Tughluq's 

 annalist notwithstanding. At a short distance from Napirud-din's 

 tomb is an interesting specimen of the mosque of those times, when 

 Hindu temples were not at hand to be plundered. The mosque 



