Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough

"Lord Ellenborough, the Governor General, made his entry into Ferozpur on the 9th of December, with 120 elephants, 700 camels, and numerous wagons…General Nott crossed the Sutlej with his corps on the 23rd of December, the anniversary of the murder of Sir William M‘Naughten. He brought with him the famous sandal-wood gates of Somnauth, which were covered with red cloth, embroidered with gold, and drawn by twenty-four oxen. It is said that Mahmood the Ghuznevide took these gates with him to Ghuznee, when he destroyed the temple of Somnauth, in 1025; but this splendid Hindoo temple, to which they are to be restored, retains scarcely a trace of its former magnificence, and its remains have been converted into a mosque. The Maharaja, Shere Singh, had not only sent a bodyguard to receive the gates on British territory, but had given a present of a sum of money to the escort. When I went to examine the gates more closely the next day, I found a number of Brahmins, strewing flowers upon them, who assured me there was not the slightest doubt that they were genuine. They are most skillfully carved with stars and arabesques, and bordered with Kufic characters, but unfortunately the gates are so much injured, that scarcely the half of the beautiful work has been preserved."