unless the Cossack should follow the track of Roshan Ali or Mahmud, and try to tear the British flag from the kunguras of Ajmer. On the north side a party of the superintendent’s were unlocking the latent treasures in the bowels of the mountain. The vein is of lead; a sulphuret, or galena [783].[[8]]
The Bīsal Tālāb.
The gardens erected on the embankment of the lake must have been a pleasant abode for “the king of the world,” while his lieutenants were carrying on the war against the Rana: but the imperial residence of marble, in which he received the submissions of that prince, through his grandson, and the first ambassador sent by England to the Mogul, are now going fast to decay. The walks on which his majesty last paraded, in the state-coach sent by our James the First, are now overgrown with shrubs.
The stratification of the rock, at the point of outlet, would interest the geologist, especially an extensive vein of mica, adjoining another of almost transparent quartz.
Anasāgar Lake.
Such are the wonders in the environs of Daru-l-Khair, “celebrated in the history of the Moguls, as well as of the Hindus.” But my search for inscriptions to corroborate the legends of the Chauhans proved fruitless. I was, however, fortunate enough to add to my numismatic treasures some of the currency of these ancient kings, which give interest to a series of the same description, all appertaining [784] to the Buddhists or Jains. The inscription occupying one side is in a most antique character, the knowledge of which is still a desideratum: the reverse bears the effigies of a horse, the object of worship to the Indo-Scythic Rajput.[[9]] It is not improbable that the Agnikula Chauhan may have brought these letters with him from higher Asia. Researches in these countries for such monuments may yet discover how far this conjecture is correct. At Pushkar I also found some very ancient coins. Had the antiquary travelled these regions prior to the reign of Aurangzeb he would have had a noble field to explore: many coins were destroyed by this bigot, but many were buried underground, which time or accident may disclose. He was the great foe of Rajput fame; and well might the bard, in the words of the Cambrian minstrel, bid
Ruin seize thee, ruthless king.
They did repay his cruelties by the destruction of his race. In one short century from this tyrant, who grasped each shore of the peninsula, the Mogul power was extinct; while the oppressed Rajputs are again on the ascendant. But the illiterate and mercenary Afghan, “the descendant of the lost tribes of Israel,”[[10]] if we credit their traditions, may share the iniquity with Aurangzeb: for they fulfilled literally a duty which their supposed forefathers pertinaciously refused, and made war against every graven image. Had they even spared us a few of the monsters, the joint conceptions of the poet and the sculptor, I might have presented some specimens of griffins (gras)[[11]] and demons almost of a classical taste: but the love of mischief was too strong even to let these escape: the shoe was applied to the prominent features of everything which represented animation.
By a medium of several meridian observations, I made the latitude of Ajmer 26° 19´ north; its longitude, by time and measurement from my fixed meridian, Udaipur, 74° 40´, nearly the position assigned to it by the father of Indian geography, the justly celebrated Rennell.[[12]]