BABER. 
209 
gardens to be laid out. Here he directed that a solid 
block of granite of vast bulk should be excavated 
and converted into a dwelling-house ; but finding the 
block too small for the purpose, a tank was hollowed 
in the stone, and supplied by a well sunk on the 
north side, in the centre of a grove of mango and 
other fruit-trees, a short distance from the margin. 
When Baber had decided upon the necessary improve- 
ments, he repaired to Gualior. Here he visited the 
palace of the governor, which was an exceedingly 
splendid edifice. Outside one of the gates was a 
singular sculpture of an elephant of colossal size, with 
two drivers seated upon its neck. He likewise visited 
the gardens, and all the antiquities in the neighbour- 
hood. Among the latter was a gigantic stone idol, 
upwards of forty feet high, which, together with several 
other things employed for idolatrous purposes, he com- 
manded to be destroyed. 
The day after his visit to Gualior, Baber received 
a communication from the son of Rana Sanka, whom 
he had lately defeated, offering him submission and 
allegiance upon certain conditions, which were ac- 
cepted. The alliance of the Rajpoot was purchased at 
an annuity equivalent to about seventeen thousand 
pounds sterling. ' During Baber’s stay he went in state 
to the grand mosque built by the emperor Altmish, for 
the repose of whose soul he commanded prayers to be 
offered, and returned to Agra, which he reached upon 
the ninth of October. A few days after he received 
a despatch from his son Humaioon, announcing the 
birth of a daughter to that prince. 
On the sixth of November Baber was attacked 
t 3 
