CHAPTER XXXII. THE DELHI-FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY-THE PALACE OF The visit to Delhi is described in the following language: We came into Delhi early in the afternoon in a worn-out, fagged condition. There was a reception by the troops, and the General with Mrs. Grant drove to Ludlow Castle, the home of Gordon Young, the chief officer. The others found quarters in a comfortable hotel-comfortable for India-near the railway-station. The first impression Delhi makes upon you is that it is a beautiful town. But I am afraid that the word town, as we understand it at home, will give you no idea of a town in India. We think of houses built closely together, of avenues and streets, and people living as neighbors and friends. In India, a town is built for the air. The natives in some of the native sections, in the bazaars, live closely together, huddle into small cubby-holes of houses or rude caves, in huts of mud and straw, but natives of wealth and Englishmen build their houses where they may have space. A drive through Delhi is like a drive through the lower part of Westchester county or any of our country suburbs. The officials have their bungalows in the finest localities, near wood and water when possible, surrounded by gardens. What strikes you in India is the excellence of the roads and the beauty of the gardens. This was especially true of Delhi. As you drove from the dusty station, with the strains of welcoming music and the clang of presenting arms in your ears, you passed through a section that might have been an English country town with gentlemen's seats all around." There are few cities in the world which have had a more varied and more splendid career than Delhi. It is the Rome of India, and the history of India centres around Delhi. It has no such place as Benares in the religion of the people, but to the Indians it is what Rome in the ancient days was to the Roman Empire. One of its authentic monuments goes back to the fourth century before Christ. Its splendor began with the rise of the Mogul empire, and as you ride around the suburbs you see the splendor of the Moguls in what they built and the severity of their creed in what they destroyed. After you pass from the English section, a ride through Delhi is sad. You go through miles of ruins - the ruins of many wars and dynasties, from what was destroyed by the Turk in the twelfth century to what was destroyed by the Englishman in the nineteenth. The suburbs of Jerusalem are sad enough, but there you have only the memories, the words of prophecy, and the history of destruction. Time has covered or dispersed the ruins. But time has not been able to do so with the ruins of Delhi. From the Cashmere gate to the Kutab, a ride of eleven miles, your road is through monumental ruins. Tombs, temples, mausoleums, mosques, in all directions. The horizon is studded with minarets and domes, all abandoned and many in ruins. In some of them Hindoo or Moslem families live, or, I may say, burrow. Over others the Government keeps a kind of supervision; but to supervise or protect all would be beyond the revenues of any government. I was shown one ruin — an arched way, beautiful in design and of architectural value-which it was proposed to restore; but the cost was beyond the resources of the Delhi treasury. I have no doubt of the best disposition of the rulers of India towards the monuments and all that reminds the Hindoo of his earlier history. But these monuments were built when labor was cheap, when workmen were compelled to be content with a handful of corn, and when the will of the ruler was a warrant for anything that pleased him. So that even to a rich and generous government, conducted on English principles, the restoration of the monuments would be an enormous tax. The English, however, are not apt to waste much money on sentiment. They did not come to India to leave money behind, but to take it away, and all the money spent here is first to secure the government of the country, and next to ameliorate the condition of the people and prevent famines. The money which England takes out of India every year is a serious drain upon the country, and is among the causes of its poverty. But if money is to be spent, it is better to do so upon works of irrigation, that will prevent famines, than upon monuments, which mean nothing to this generation, and which might all be destroyed, with a few exceptions, without any loss to history or art. Among the sights to be beheld in Delhi is the palace of the Grand Mogul, concerning which our correspondent says:- In wandering about Delhi your mind is attracted to these sad scenes. What it must have been when the Moguls reigned you may see in the old palace, the great mosque of Shah Ishan, and the Kutab. On the afternoon of our arrival we were taken to the palace, which is now used as a fort for the defence of the city. We have an idea of what the palace must have been in the days of Aurungzebe. "Over against the great gate of the court," says a French writer who visited India in the seventeenth century, "there is a great and stately hall, with many ranks of pillars high raised, very airy, open on three sides looking to the court, and having its pillars ground and gilded. In the midst of the wall, which separateth this hall from the seraglio, there is an opening or a kind of great window high and large, and so high that a man cannot reach to it from below with his hand. There it is where the King appears, seated upon his throne, having his sons on his side, and some eunuchs standing, some of which drive away the flies with peacocks' tails, others fan him with great fans, others stand there ready with great respect and humility for several services. Thence he seeth beneath him all the umrahs, rajahs, and ambassadors, who are also all of them standing upon a raised ground encompassed with silver rails, with their eyes downward and their hands crossing their stomachs." "In the court he seeth a great crowd of all sorts of people." Sometimes his Majesty would be entertained by elephants and fighting animals and reviews of cavalry. There were feats of arms of the young nobles of the court; but more especially was this seat a seat of justice, for if any one in the crowd had a petition he was ordered to approach, and very often justice was done then and there, for "those kings," says a French authority, "how barbarous soever esteemed by us, do yet constantly remember that they owe justice to their subjects." We were shown this hall, and by the aid of a sergeant, who walked ahead and warned us against stumbling, climbed up a narrow stair, and came out on the throne. All the decorations have vanished, and it is simply a marble platform," so high that a man cannot reach to it from below with his hands." The view from the throne em braced a wide, open plain, which could easily accommodate a large crowd, as well as give space for manœuvres, reviews, and fighting elephants. The hall even now is beautiful and stately, although it has been given over to soldiers, and the only audience that saluted General Grant during his brief tenure of the throne of Aurungzebe, were groups of English privates, who lounged about taking their ease, making ready for dinner, and staring at the General and the groups of officers who accompanied him. The last of the Moguls who occupied this throne, was the foolish old dotard whom the Sepoys made Emperor in 1857, and whó used to sit and tear his hair and dash his turban on the ground, and call down the curses of God upon his soldiers for having dragged him to the throne. All that has long since passed away. The Emperor lies in Burmah in an unknown grave, the site carefully concealed from all knowledge, lest some Moslem retainer should build a shrine to his memory. His son is a pensioner and prisoner at $3,000 a year. The rest of his family were slain, and the present house of the Mohammedan conquerors has sunk too low even for compassion. Notwithstanding the havoc of armies and the wear and tear of barrack life, there are many noble buildings in the palace. This hall of audience, before the mutiny, was decorated with mosaic; but an officer of the British army captured the mosaic, had it made up into various articles, and sold them for $2,500. From here we went to the hall of special audience, where the Emperor saw his princes and noblemen, and which is known as the hall of the peacock throne. The site of this famous throne was pointed out to us, but there is no trace of it. Around the white marrested are the following ble platform on which the throne words in gilt Persian characters: "If there be an Elysium on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this." The peacock |