OUT OF EDEN WALK

The hundred-mile waypoints on my global walking route usually tick over in mundane settings. At a boulder field in Ethiopia. Beside a gritty Palestinian gas station. Along an anonymous stretch of railroad in Uzbekistan. But for the first time in six years, a milestone has fallen precisely at a bona fide cultural landmark: the masterpiece tomb, built of cloud-grey stone, of the fabled Afghan emperor of northern India in the 16th century, Sher Shah of Sur.

One of the great Muslim rulers of India, Sher Shah organized India’s tax collection system. He formalized a postal service. He was a genius at siege tactics and road building. He also was generally tolerant of other faiths—though he did go back on his promise to spare the kin of the vanquished Rajput king Puran Mal, castrating the king’s nephews and forcing Mal’s daughter to join a minstrel band as a dancing girl. Such are the fickle wages of empire.

“He is mainly remembered for his tomb,” said Rajesh Ram, a guard at the colossal mausoleum in Sasaram, in Bihar state. “He was a good man, the emperor. He was a father to his people. He was a progressive. But his tomb is how he’s remembered.”

It was raining when I walked through. For all its mass, the tomb was beautifully lean. It held the austerity of the Afghans. It was sparsely visited and smelled of bats and pigeons.