THE RAJPOOTANA MISSION.

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and the irrigation works in the vicinity are some of the monuments of good government in this little state. There are about 100,000 inhabitants in the capital, which is commanded by the Tiger Fort, on the top of a lofty hill.

While I was sitting in the verandah of the bungalow, in the afternoon, I was surprised and pleased to receive a visit from the Rev. John Traill, a Brechin man, who has been nine years connected with the United Presbyterian Mission in Rajpootana, and who, I afterwards learnt, is not only respected by the whole European community, but is such a favourite among the natives that all classes delight to receive and listen to him.

Shortly after 8 o'clock on Thursday morning we were off again on the State railway; and although the travelling was certainly much smoother than between Ahmedabad and Ajmere, it was by no means what it ought to be, and I cannot find anyone hereabouts who has now a good word to say for the metre gauge. It is what the Americans call an air line, or nearly straight, as far as Bandikui, passing partly over

C

great grassy wastes, inhabited by deer and parroquets and peacocks, and partly through fields of grain and cotton, the former of which the peasants were busy irrigating from numerous wells.

The only town of any importance on this route is Alwur, with 50,000 inhabitants, the capital of another Rajpoot state.

CHAPTER III.

DELHI AND LAHORE.

AND now I write in Delhi, the ancient capital of the Great Mogul, historically celebrated in many ways, and the scene of events in the Mutiny of 1857 which shook the British dominion in Hindostan to its very base, and horrified and excited the whole civilised world. Sixtysix officers and 1,100 men fell in that terrible final assault, which once more vindicated our supremacy over a population of 300 millions, and enables Queen Victoria now Victoria now to grant patents of accession to no fewer than 153 native princes.

We have plucked a leaf from that banyantree inside the fort where twenty-seven Europeans were massacred in cold blood; and we have wondered and admired in the lovely private audience-hall-a garden of roses on one hand, and on the other the river Jumna, with the great railway-bridge. It is a pavilion of white

marble, which once contained the famous Peacock Throne, where the puppet emperor resided during the siege, and where the Prince of Wales received in durbar the magnates of India. The ladies' apartments are now the officers' messroom, and the audience-chamber of Shah Jehan has been converted into the canteen of the British force!

Since the Mutiny, all the buildings near the fort-which itself is one-and-a-quarter miles in circumference-have been demolished, and the space has been laid out in walks and trees. We entered it by the Lahore Gate, where there is a row of native shops, for the benefit of the soldiers-"Ram Sing, tailor," &c.—and left it by the Delhi Gate, where the walls are seventy feet high, and covered with parroquets, and near which are the comfortable-looking quarters of the married European troops. The officers have elegant and commodious-looking quarters in the centre of the ground, which is tastefully laid out, and strikes one as a most desirable abode.

Close to the charming Hall of Audience,

THE MOSQUES of Delhi.

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with its rich inlaid-work and transparent marble tracery, is the little mosque of Moti-Musjid, or the Pearl Mosque, a perfect gem of white marble with black lines, which bring into relief the exquisite work on the walls. How plain and grand it all is; how different from the ornaments of Roman Catholic cathedrals! This was built by no worshippers of images, but believers in the doctrine that there is one God.

On the city side of the open space which detaches the fort stands the Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in India, with two lofty minarets; one of which we ascended, and had a most magnificent view of Delhi and its neighbourhood. In and around that building in 1857 assembled 40,000 men to pray for success to the rebel armies, and there on Friday, 9th December, 1881, we saw two or three thousand Mussulman worshippers bowing in the direction of Mecca : not south-east, as we had seen them do before, but north-west, within sound of the British. bugles and in the presence of a few wandering travellers, chiefly Scotch, come out to view this wondrous land.