dinner, a company of native players gathered on the veranda and told stories in the Indian dialect, and gave little mimic charades or comedies, the actors being puppets, a kind of Hindoo Punch and Judy show. The subjects illustrated were incidents of the mutiny and scenes in the life of a tax-gatherer. There was a good deal of skill and some humor shown in the management of the puppets, and altogether it was an odd experience. The dinner over, we took our leave of our friends, whose kindness had been unbounded, and next morning proceeded to the north, to Delhi, the city of the Mogul kings, and Lucknow, the city of the rulers of Oude-cities famous in the ancient history of India for their wealth and splendor, and even more famous now with a dreary and tragic renown as the centres of the mutiny of 1857.

DELHI

CHAPTER XXXII.

-FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE CITY THE PALACE OF THE GRAND MOGUL-THE THRONE OF AURUNGZEBETHE PEACOCK THRONE- MOSLEM VANDALISM - THE KUTAB-THE VISIT TO LUCKNOW-THE SCENE OF THE SEPOY REBELLION - MISSIONARY EFFORTS BENARES, THE SACRED CITY OF THE HINDOOS-MACAULAY'S DESCRIPTION OF IT A CITY OF PRIESTS-ITS TEMPLESTHE SACRED RIVER.

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