"The first three stories are of fine red sandstone, while the two upper ones are mostly of marble. The whole height of the column is 240 feet, and it is thought that it was originally not far from 300 feet. It is fifty feet in diameter at the base, and thirteen at the top, and is ascended by 375 steps. We did not find the ascent very fatiguing, as we rested at each of the balconies, and took things as easily as we could. Fortunately for us, the day was cool, and there was a fine breeze that required us to put on our overcoats as soon as we reached the top. "It is not exactly known when the tower was begun or completed, but the inscriptions on and around it indicate that it was built about seven hundred years ago, and the work occupied twenty or thirty years. Evidently somebody wanted to excel it, as there is the beginning of another structure of the same character, but twice the circumference, about 500 feet away. The first story of this new edifice was never completed, and from present appearances it never will be. All around the Kuttub Minar there are ruins of mosques and temples, some of Hindoo and others of Moslem origin. The nearest and largest was the Jamma Musjid, or Great Mosque, of old Delhi, and was built from the ruins of twenty-seven Hindoo temples that were pulled down after the Mohammedans captured the city, about A.D. 1193. There is one arch fifty feet high and twenty-two feet wide, and one of its rooms was 135 feet long, with a roof supported on five rows of marble and sandstone pillars. "From the ruins of the mosque the guide took us to a well about eighty feet deep, where a group of natives were ready to jump to the water on payment of a small sum. We had seen the same thing at Futtehpoor-Sikra, and were in a hurry to get through with the ruins, and so we refused to witness the performance. The guide told us that the men expected every traveller to pay them for taking this extraordinary leap; that it was their means of living, and they did not pretend to do any other work. The water is said to be very cold, as the sun rarely shines upon it, and nobody can tell how old the well is, or by whom it was made. [Illustration: THE IRON PILLAR.]