Note 506 — Chapter III · PATHAN STYLE.

Owing to the Hindu part being undisturbed, and the Mahomedan part better built and with larger materials, the mosque is not in the same ruinous condition as that at the Kutub was before the late repairs. It is, however, in a filthy and neglected state, and might at a very slight outlay be preserved from further dilapidation, and its beauties very much enhanced. There is, so far as I can judge, no building in India more worthy of the attention of Government than this. The kind of care, however, that is bestowed upon it may be gathered from the following extract from a private letter from a gentleman high in the Government service in India, and one perfectly well informed as to what he was writing about: “Have you ever heard that some of the Hindu pillars of the great mosque at Ajmir were dragged from their places (I presume they were fallen pillars), and set up as a triumphal arch on the occasion of Lord Mayo’s visit? and have you heard that they were so insecurely converted that nobody dared to go under them, and that Lord Mayo and the inspired—— of architects went round it?” This is more than confirmed in a public letter by Sir John Strachey, Lieut.-Governor of the North-West Provinces, addressed to Lord Northbrook, on 25th August last. In this he speaks of “an over zealous district officer who, not long ago, actually pulled down the sculptured columns of a well-known temple of great antiquity”—the Arhai din ka Jhompra—“with the object of decorating a temporary triumphal arch through which the Viceroy was to pass.” He then proceeds to quote what Rousselet says regarding our neglect of such monuments, which is not one whit too severe.