170 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL. 
dome, moss-grown and blackened with age, but still 
unimpaired in strength. The lower parts of the 
structure alone showed symptoms of decay, a foot or 
two of solid masonry having been eaten away all 
round the base by damp and corrosion, or worn by 
the touch of the devotees, who according to the 
accounts of the natives have continued their visits to 
it through thousands of successive generations. 
Dark and mysterious was the place within; the 
foot-fall was re-echoed ten thousand times with hol- 
low reverberations, and the voice was carried circling 
up to the vaulted roof in solemn swells of most un- 
earthly sound, which could not fail to startle the 
intruder and make him strive to penetrate with 
curious eye the impervious gloom which filled the 
lofty dome. Bats and noisome reptiles, hithefto un- 
seen, revealed themselves the instant they were dis- 
turbed by the entrance of a visitor ; and it required 
no small nerve there to remain and keep the mind 
intent upon devotion, while repeating even a short 
prayer, amid the hissing of snakes, the loathsome 
creeping of lizards, the screaming and flapping of 
vampires, and the concerted accompaniment of innu- 
merable obnoxious vermin ; and yet thousands there 
were who braved all these terrors to seek favor of this 
saint unknown. 
Four or five years since two soldiers of the East 
India Company’s European Regiment who were 
then cantoned at Agra applied to their commanding 
