260 INDIAN SARACENIC ARCHITECTURE. BOOK VII. is at some distance from the ground, and altogether it looks more like an Irish round - tower than any other example known, though it is most improbable that there should be any connection between the two forms. Probably a platform about 15 ft. in height once surrounded the base, but if so, it has entirely disappeared. Inside, a spiral stair leads to the small chamber on the summit, once roofed by a dome. It is perhaps a pillar of victory a Jaya-Stambha such as the Qutb Minar at Delhi, and those at Koil, Daulatabad, and elsewhere. There is said to have been an inscription on this monument which ascribed its erection to Saifu-d- Din Firuz Shah II., who reigned in Gaur A.D. 1488-1490, and the character of trie architecture fully bears out this adscrip- tion. The native tradition is, that a saint, Pir Asa, 1 lived, like Simon Stylites, on its summit ! Besides these, there are several of the gateways of Gaur which are of considerable magnificence. The finest is that called the Dakhil or Salami gateway, the north entrance into the fort, said to have been built by Ruknu-d-Din Barbak Shah (1460-1474), which, though of brick, and adorned only with terra-cotta ornaments, is as grand an object of its class as is to be found anywhere. The gate of the citadel, and the southern gate of the city, are very noble examples of what can be done with bricks, and bricks only. The latter of these, known as the Kotwali Darwaza, is a handsome and imposing gateway leading from the south side of the old city, and, except above, is in pretty good preservation. To the apex of the arch is 3 1 ft. and the depth is 5 1 ft., and on the south it was provided with semicircular abutments on each side for the military guard. 2 It is not, however, in the dimensions of its buildings or the beauty of their details that the glory of Gaur resides ; it is in the wonderful mass of ruins stretching along what was once the high bank of the Ganges, for nearly twenty miles, from Pandua south- wards mosques still in use, mixed with mounds covering ruins tombs, temples, tanks and towers, scattered without order over an immense distance, and long half buried in a luxuriance of vegetation which only this part of India can exhibit. What looks poor, and may be in indifferent taste, drawn on paper and reduced to scale, may give an idea of splendour in decay when 1 Probably a corruption of Firuz-Shah. 2 J. H. Ravenshaw's ' Gaur, its Ruins and Inscriptions' (4to, London, 1878) ; Montgomery Martin's 'Eastern India,' vol. ii. pp. 643-658, and vol. iii. pp. 67- 80; Major Francklin's 'Journal of a Route from Rajmehal to Gaur in 1810' (MS. in India Office) ; Cunningham, 'Reports,' vol. xv. pp. 39-94, and plates 13-26.
