But our title has yet another meaning underneath the first, for _Ahi_,
the name employed for Ráhu (like all other figures in Indian mythology,
he is known by many names), also means a _snake_. _Beauty persecuted by
a snake_ is the subject of the story. That story will presently explain
itself: but the relation between _Ráhu_, or eclipses, and a snake is so
curiously illustrated by a little insignificant occurrence that happened
to myself, that the reader will doubtless forgive me for making him
acquainted with it.

Being at Delhi, not many years ago, I seized the opportunity to visit
the Kutub Minár. There was famine in the land. At every station I had
passed upon the way were piled the hides of bullocks, and from the train
you might see their skeletons lying, each one bleaching where it died
for want of fodder, scattered here and there on the brown and burning
earth; for even every river bed was waterless, and not a single blade of
green could you descry, for many hundred miles. And hence it came about,
that as I gazed upon the two emaciated hacks that were to pull me from
the station, a dozen miles out, and as many more back, I could bring
myself to sit behind them only by the thought that thereby I should save
them from a load far greater than my own, that would have been their
fate on my refusal. Therefore we started, and did ultimately arrive, in
the very blaze of noon.

The Kutub Minár is a needle of red stone, that rises from a plain as
flat as paper to a height of two hundred and fifty feet; and you might
compare it, as you catch, approaching, glimpses of it at a distance, to
a colossal chimney, a Pharos, or an Efreet of the Jinn. The last would
be the best. For nothing on the surface of the earth can parallel the
scene of desolation which unrols itself below, if you climb its 380