NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY, &c. &c. CHAPTER XX. DELHI TO AGRA. Ruins of Toghlikabad-Visit to the Raja of Bullumghur-Dancing Girls-Nawâb of Sikre— Hindoo Pilgrimage to Bindrabund-Muttra-Sacred Monkeys--Death of one revengedLepers-Party of Fakirs-Escape of Trimbuk-jee-Tomb of Acbar-Public BuildingsDewanny Aum-Tâge-Mahal--Abdul Musseeh-French in Central India. JANUARY 3.— This morning early I sent off my tents and baggage to Furreedabad, a little town about fifteen miles from Delhi, and in the afternoon followed them on horseback, escorted by five of Skinner's horse, and accompanied by Mr. Lushington and Dr. Smith. We passed by Humaiöon's tomb, and thence through a dreary country full of ruins, along a stony and broken road marked out at equal distances of about a mile and a half, by solid circularstone obelisks, 66 coss-minars," erected during the prosperous times of the empire of Delhi. Halfway to Furreedabad we passed the gigantic ruins of Toghlikabad, on a hill about a coss to our right. I regretted that we could not see them nearer, but the stage was of sufficient length for our horses and the few remaining hours of daylight without this addition. Mr. ants, to whose increase the ruins and the dry sandy soil are favourable, and who attack the mangoes in preference to any other tree. The whole country, indeed, is barren and disagreeable, and the water bad. That of the Jumna acts on strangers like the Cheltenham waters, and the wells here are also extremely unpalatable. One might fancy oneself already approaching the confines of Persia and Arabia. Our camp is, however, plentifully supplied with all necessaries and comforts, and a servant of the Raja of Bullumghur brought us some fine oranges, and at the same time told us, that his master would not suffer him to receive either payment or present for any of the supplies furnished, and only hoped that I would call at his house next morning in my way, which I readily promised to do. The Raja of Bullumghur holds a considerable territory along this frontier as a feudatory of the British Government, on the service of maintaining two thousand men to do the ordi Elliott described them as chiefly interesting from their vast dimensions, and the bulk and weight of the stones employed in them. They were the work of Toghlou Khân, one of the early Pa-nary police duties, and guard the road tan sovereigns. Furreedabad offers nothing curious except a large tank with a ruined banqueting-house on its shore; it has a grove of tamarind and other trees round it, but no mangoes; few of these, indeed, grow in the province of Delhi, owing to the unusual multitude of white VOL. II. against the Mewattee and other predatory tribes. The family, and most of their people, are of the Jât race, and they have for many generations been linked by friendship and frequent intermarriages with the neighbouring Raja of Bhurtpoor, who is now our friend, but whose gallant and success B ful.defence of his castle against Lord | deep ditch and large mud bastions, from which we were complimented with a regular salute of cannon. Within we found a small and crowded, but not ill-built town, with narrow streets, Lake during the Mabaratta war has raised the character of the Jais, previously a very low caste, to considerable estimation for their valour in all this part of India. The present act-tall houses, many temples, and a suffiing Raja of Bullumghur is only regent, being guardian to his nephew, a boy now educating at Delhi. I had heard the regent and his brother described as hospitable and high-spirited men, and was not sorry to have an opportunity of seeing a Hindoo court. January 4.-A little before daybreak we set off as usual, through a country something, and but little, more fertile than that we had passed. It improved, however, gradually as we approached Bullumghur, which, by its extensive groves, gave evidence of its having been long the residence of a respectable native family. I was not, however, at all prepared for the splendour with which I was received. First, we saw some of the wild-looking horsemen, whom I have already described, posted as if on the look-out, who, on seeing us, fired their matchlocks and galloped off as fast as possible. As we drew nearer we saw a considerable body of cavalry, with several camels and elephants, all gaily caparisoned, drawn up under some trees, and were received by the raja himself, a fat and overgrown man, and his younger brother, a very handsome and manly figure, the former alighting from a palanquin, the other from a noble Persian horse, with trappings which swept the ground. I alighted from my horse also, and the usual compliments and civilities followed. The elder brother begged me to excuse his riding with me as he was ill, which, indeed, we had heard before, but the second went by my side, reining-in his magnificent steed, and showing off the animal's paces and his own horsemanship. Before and behind were camels, elephants, and horsemen, with a most strange and barbarous music of horns, trumpets, and kettle-drums, and such a wood of spears, that I could not but tell my companion that his castle deserved its name of "Fort of Spears." As we drew nearer we saw the fort itself, with high brick walls, strengthened with a cient number of Brahminy bulls to show the pure Hindoo descent of the ruler. The population of the little capital was almost all assembled in the streets, on the walls, and on the house-tops, and salamed to us as we came in. We passed through two or three sharp turns, and at length stopped at the outer gate of a very neat little palace, built around a small court planted with jonquils and rose-bushes, with a marble fountain in the centre, and a small open arched hall, where chairs were placed for us. Sitringees were laid, by way of carpet, on the floor, and the walls were ornamented with some paltry Hindoo portraits of the family, and some old fresco paintings of gods, goddesses, and heroes encountering lions and tigers. After we had been here a few minutes a set of dancing-girls entered the room followed by two musicians. I felt a little uneasy at this apparition, but Dr. Smith, to whom I mentioned my apprehensions, assured me that nothing approaching to indecency was to be looked for in the dances or songs which a well-bred Hindoo exhibited to his visitors. I sat still, therefore, while these poor little girls, for they none of them seemed more than fourteen, went through the same monotonous evolutions which I had heard my wife describe, in which there is certainly very little grace or interest, and no perceptible approach to indecency. The chief part of the figure, if it can be called so, seemed to consist in drawing up and letting fall again the loose wide sleeves of their outer garments, so as to show the arm as high as the elbow, or a very little higher, while the arms were waved backwards and forwards in a stiff and constrained manner. Their dresses were rich, but there was such an enormous quantity of scarlet cloth petticoats and trousers, so many shawls wrapped round their waists, and such multifarious skirts peeping out below each other, that their figures were quite | hidden, and the whole effect was that of a number of Dutch dolls, though the faces of two or three out of the number were pretty. Two sung each a Persian and a Hindoostanee song, with very pleasing, though not powerful voices, after which, as the demands both of curiosity and civility were satisfied, I gave them a gratuity, as I understood was usual on such occasions, as a token of their dismissal. After this, some cake and Persian grapes were brought in, and I took leave, having, in the civilest and most cordial way I could, declined the usual present of shawls, and accepted one of fruit and sweetmeats. On going away, I told the raja's jemautdar to come to the camp in the evening, and he and his fellow-servants should have the usual bukshish, but he answered that neither he nor any of the raja's people, except the dancing-girls, to whom it was an usual token of approbation, dared accept anything of the kind, the first instance which I had met with of a Hindoo refusing money. Soon after I had taken leave, and while we were still escorted by the Bullumghur cavalry, a message came from the raja to say that he had heard of my intended liberality to his people, but that it was his particular request that I would give nothing either to his servants or to the suwarrs, whom he intended, with my leave, to send on with me as far as Muttra. Surely this is what in England would be called high and gentlemanly feeling. On our approach to Sikre, where the tents were pitched, I found we had entered another little feudal territory, being received by about twenty horsemen, with a splendid old warrior at their head, who announced himself as the jaghiredar of the place, and holding a little barony, as it would be called in Europe, under the Company, intermixed with the larger territories of Bullumghur. Cassim Ali Khân, the Nawâb of Sikre, who thus introduced himself, was a figure which Wouvermans or Rubens would have delighted to paint, a tall, large, elderly man, with a fine countenance, and a thick and curly, but not long grey beard, on a large and powerful white Persian horse, with a brocade turban, a saddle-cloth of tiger's skin with golden tassels which almost swept the ground, sword, shield, and pistols mounted with silver, and all the other picturesque insignia of a Mussulman cavalier of distinction. He said that he had been a tussildar in command of two hundred horse in Lord Lake's war, and had been recompensed at the end of the contest with a little territory of ten villages, rent and tax free. The raja, he said, who had two hundred and fifty villages, nearly enclosed him, but they were good friends. The raja, certainly, though his brother is a fine young man, had nothing in his whole cavalcade to equal the old nawab's figure, which was perfect as a picture, from his bare muscular neck and his crisp grey mustachios, down to his yellow boots and the strong brown hand, with an emerald ring on it, the least turn of which on his silver bridle seemed to have complete mastery over his horse, without too much repressing its spirit. He afterwards showed me his certificates of service from Lord Lake and others, and it appeared that his character in all respects had corresponded with his manly and intelligent appearance. At Sikre I found a letter from Mr. Cavendish, collector and magistrate of this district, saying that he was encamped in the neighbourhood, and intended to call on me next morning at our next station, at Brahminy Kerar. January 5.-The country between Sikre and Brahminy Kerar is uninteresting enough, though rather more fertile than in the neighbourhood of Delhi. Half-way, near a village named Pulwul, we passed Mr. Cavendish's encampment, and were met by an escort of his suwarrs. I had long since had my eyes pretty well accustomed to the sight of shields and spears, but I have not failed to observe that, along this frontier, which has not been till of late in a settled or peaceable state, and where hard blows are still of no unfrequent occurrence, even the police troopers sit their horses better, and have a more martial air by far than persons in the same situation in the Dooab or even in Rohilcund. I begin, indeed, to think | which the thannadar, or other public better of the system on which the pro- officer, brought to my camp, he devince of Delhi has been governed since manded as much more from the poor its conquest, from all which I hear of its peasants, which he appropriated to his former state. This neighbourhood, for own use; and that, even if I paid for instance, is still but badly cultivated, what I got, it required much attention, but fifteen years ago it was as wild, I and some knowledge of the language, am assured, as the Terrai, as full of to be sure that the money was not intertigers, and with no human inhabitants | cepted in its way to the right owner. but banditti. Cattle-stealing still pre- But the common practice of the thanvails to a great extent, but the Mewat- nadar was, to charge nothing for what tees are now most of them subject either was furnished to the traveller, both to the British government or that of from wishing to make a compliment to Bhurtpoor, and the security of life and the latter (which costs him nothing), property afforded them by the former and also to take, without the means of has induced many of the tribes to aban- detection, his own share of the plunder. don their fortresses, to seat themselves The best way is to insist on a written in the plain, and cultivate the ground bill, and request the collector afterwards like honest men and good subjects, to inquire of the ryuts whether the while the tranquillity of the border, money had been paid. and the force maintained along it, prevents the Bhurtpoor marauders from renewing their depredations so often as they used to do. Highway robberies also sometimes occur, generally attended with murder; but on the whole the amendment has been great, and an European, under ordinary circumstan-human feet, one pair larger than the ces, may pass in safety through any other, on a little altar against the wall, part of the district. The lands are not and was told that it was the customary now highly assessed, and Government way of commemorating that the favouhas liberally given up half the year's rite wife had burnt herself with her rent in consideration of the drought. husband. This horrible custom, I am Still, however, something more is want- glad to find, is by no means common in ing, and every public man in these pro- this part of India; indeed, I have not vinces appears to wish that a settlement yet found it common anywhere except in for fourteen or even twenty years could Bengal, and some parts of Bahar. be brought about, in order to give the zemindars an interest in the soil and an inducement to make improvements. At Brahminy Kerar are a few ruins, but nothing worthy particular notice. The coss-minars still make their appearance, but at very uncertain distances, great numbers having been destroyed or gone to decay. Indeed the road does not always follow its ancient line. January 6.-We went on eight coss to Horal. The country along the roadside is jungly, but cultivation seems rapidly gaining on it. The road-side is, in India, always the part last cultivated, the natives being exposed to many injuries and oppressions from Sepoys and travellers. I was told that for every bundle of grass or faggots At Horal is a very pretty native house now uninhabited, but used as a court of justice, with a fine tank near it, both the work of a former Hindoo jemautdar, in memory of whom a small temple is raised in the neighbourhood. Within I saw the representation of four January 7.-From Horal to Dhotana, in the province of Agra, is seven coss, a wild but more woody country than we had lately traversed. By woody, as distinct from jungle, I mean that a good many fine trees were seen. At Dhotana I saw the first instance of a custom which I am told I shall see a good deal of in my southern journey,―a number of women, about a dozen, who came with pitchers on their heads, dancing and singing, to meet There is, if I recollect right, an account of this sort of dance in "Kehama." They all professed to be "gaopiâree,” or milk-maids, and are, in fact, as the thannadar assured me, the wives and daughters of the Gaowala caste. Their voices and style of singing were by no me. |