"One of the greatest curiosities of Delhi is the Coottub-Minar, which is fifteen miles from the city, and is a conspicuous object at a great distance. This celebrated pillar was erected in 1193 by Coottubud-Deen, the founder of the Ghoorides, who overthrew the throne of the Brahmins in Delhi, in commemoration of the triumph of Mahometanism over Brahminism… About eight O’clock I stood before the lofty Coottub Minar: it is built of very fine, hard red sandstone, is 62 feet in diameter at the base, and rises to the height of 265 feet; it is divided into three stories, and the upper gallery is elevated 242 feet 6 inches above the ground. This column, which is the highest in the world, was intended by Coottub-ud-Deen to mark the entrance to a mosque which he purposed building. The lower story is about 90 feet high, and is built in alternate angular and concave channelings, on which sentences from the Koran are inscribed in raised Arabic characters; the other two stories consist of concave flutings only, and diminish gradually to the summit. The whole is crowned by a small dome, which is supported by eight square pillars: this dome was shattered by an earthquake in the year 1803, but has been restored by the English in its original form. The column stands in the midst of some very ancient Bhoodist and Hindoo buildings and Mahometan ruins. The colossal gates and columns, and the bold vaults of the former, still indicate an age of great prosperity, which intended to immortalize its faith and its history by the grandest works of art. On the cornices are sculptures, representing the processions of their kings, similar to those of the princes of our times. The pilasters are ornamented with elephants’ heads; and a careful observer might here trace some isolated moments of the history of an age long since past, and of which so little is known. A longer stay than I was enabled to make is however indispensable to an investigation of this kind, and I was forced to content myself with a cursory view. In one of the courts is an ancient iron pillar thirty feet high, with Sanscrit and Arabic inscriptions, on which the tyrant Nadir Shah, in a passion, struck a violent blow with a hatchet, the mark of which still remains."