From the citadel we passed through the artillery lines, a wretched collection of half-ruined and tumbledown hovels, choked with dung-heaps, horse litter, and filth of every description, and turned off to the Ahmad Shahí mausoleum. The approach to it is over an uneven bit of ground, which is one mass of ordure, the stench from which was perfectly dreadful. It quite sickened us, and kept us spitting till we got out into the open country again. The tomb, like everything else here, appears neglected and fast going to decay. The stone platform on which it stands is broken at the edges, and the steps leading up to it, though only three or four, are suffered to crumble under the feet of visitors without an attempt at repair. The dome has a very dilapidated look from the falling off here and there of the coloured tiles that cover it, whilst those that are still left make the disfigurement the more prominent by their bright glaze. Where uncovered, the mortar is honeycombed by the nests of a colony of blue pigeons, which have here found a safe asylum even from their natural enemies of the hawk species. The interior is occupied by a central tomb, under which repose, in the odour of sanctity—though those surrounding it are anything but sanctified—the ashes of the first and greatest of the Durrani kings. Near it are some smaller tombs, the graves of various members of the king’s family. The cupola is very tastefully decorated by a fine Arabesque gilding, in which run all round the sides—the dome being supported on an octagonal building—a series of quotations from the Curán. These, in the light admitted through the fine reticulations of the lattice windows, appeared remarkable fresh and bright, though untouched since their first production a century ago. We doffed our hats as we entered the sacred precincts, as our attendants took off their shoes at the threshold, excepting only the Saggid and General Safdar Ali and Colonel Táj Muhammad, who were much too tightly strapped in their odd compounds of Asiatic and European military uniforms to attempt any such disarrangement of their evidently unaccustomed habiliments. The _mujawwir_, or keeper of the shrine—for amongst this saint-loving people the tenant of so grand a tomb could hardly escape being converted into so holy a character—was quite pleased at this mark of respect on our part, and made himself very agreeable by his welcome and readiness to afford information. “I know,” said he, with a hasty and timid glance at the shodden feet of our companions, “that this is the manner in which Europeans testify their reverence for holy places. The officers who visited this tomb when the British army was here observed the same custom, and always uncovered the head on entering beneath this roof. It is quite correct. Every nation has its own customs; you uncover the head, and we uncover the feet. In either case, respect for the departed great is the object, and by either observance it is manifested.