February 4th.-The cantonments and environs of Delhi present a very animated appearance, consequent on the arrival of the regiments composing the Governor-General's escort, and of the number of great men-among whom are the rajahs and chiefs of Rajpootana and Central India-summoned hither to meet his lordship. Delhi, indeed, is all commotion. The people are agitated by a report that the King has been discovered intriguing with the chiefs of Rohilcund, and that he is about to be deposed by the GovernorGeneral. Others imagine that our troops are going to sack the city; others say—- but there are a hundred reports, none of which, perhaps, have the least foundation. February 5th.-Almost every one is up and abroad at daybreak to witness the entrée of the Governor-General into Delhi. Shortly before sunrise the whole of the troops of the garrison, having been relieved from their respective guards and posts, were drawn up in one continued line on the right side of the high road to Kurnaul. Several parties of European ladies and gentlemen went out to see the spectacle; but many who would have been there on any other day abstained from going, as it was the Sabbath. The morning was most beautiful. As the appointed hour drew near, the sound of music in the distance announced the approach of "THE ILLUSTRIOUS GARRISON," and a little after seven the head of the 35th Light Infantry, preceded by its band, and the standards that had been captured in the various engagements at Jellalabad and elsewhere, reached the right of the line, and was received by the troops in succession with the honours decreed by the Governor-General. Colonel Monteath rode at the head of this distinguished regiment, which was followed by No. 6 Light Field Battery, each gun drawn by eight of the stout yaboos, which had done such good service in Afghanistan. Major Broadfoot and his small band of Ghoorka sappers succeeded, looking not a little proud at forming a portion of so distinguished a cortège. The troops had scarcely time to "carry arms before they were called upon to pay the honours due to the Governor-General himself, who was preceded by the bodyguard, and mounted on a handsomely caparisoned elephant. His lordship was accompanied by a The Persian name for ponies. * numerous train of secretaries, aides-de-camp, and native nobility, among whom was the Rajah of Shahpore, not one of whose three hundred cavalry had a decent bridle to his miserable steed. Most conspicuous, and immediately in front of the Governor-General, rode the Maharajah Hindoo Rao, mounted on an enormous elephant, which by far overtopped his huge brethren; while in the line on the right of his lordship the howdah, dress, and trappings of Nawab Ahmed Alee Khan, wuzeer (for the time) to his majesty of Delhi, commanded attention by their unusual splendour. The number of elephants in the procession, all more or less handsomely decked out, could not have been less than seventy, and as they advanced in line, with the Governor-General a little in front, and the rest diverging slightly from that point, they presented a most gorgeous coup d'œil. On reaching the vicinity of the Governor-General's camp, the suwaree turned to the left, and the Agent intimated to the native grandees that his Lordship dismissed them. They then retired. The scene was altogether a very imposing one. The gates of the Temple of Somnauth, which have been escorted to Delhi by five hundred cavalry of the protected Sikh States, will be in like manner escorted from Delhi to Agra by the same force of cavalry, furnished by the Rajahs of Bhurtpore and Alwar. There will remain at Delhi, in attendance on the GovernorGeneral, seven thousand men, in the midst of whom his Lordship will receive several of the chiefs of Rajpootana and the Mussulman feudatories who reside near the ancient seat of Imperial Government. There has been no such assemblage of feudatory chiefs of Delhi since the days of Aurungzebe. TH CHAPTER XI. THE CITY OF THE GREAT MOGUL. HE Governor-General* and the force assembled at Delhi remained here a fortnight, during which durbars were held and visits of ceremony paid-the camps of the various Native Princes, and their families, feudatories, and followers, almost encompassed the walls-and we had opportunities of seeing the city and its neighbourhood at leisure. And now once more our dreams of Eastern romance and the "Arabian Nights" were revived. We gaze again and again at A romantic story is told respecting Lady Ellenborough, which, now that his lordship has passed away, may be here mentioned. A correspondent at Beyrout writes to the German Gazette of Vienna: "I met to-day an old acquaintance, the camel driver, Sheikh Abdul, and he told me that his wife has died. Abdul's wife was no common woman. Her name was once known all through Europe. Sheikh Abdul is the ninth husband of Lady Ellenborough, whom I met for the first time about thirty years ago at Munich, just after she had eloped with Prince Schwarzenberg from the residence of her first husband. She then went to Italy, where, as she told me herself, she got married six times in succession. All these unions were dissolved after a short duration. In 1848 I met her at Athens, where she concluded an eighth marriage with the Greek colonel, Count Theodoki— however, also only for a short time. Her affections were now bestowed on an old Palicar chieftain, for whom she built a beautiful house at Athens. When her latest marriage was again dissolved she went to the Levant. During a journey from Beyrout to Damascus she got pleased with the camel driver, Sheikh Abdul, and selected him for her ninth husband. She was married to him after the Arab fashion, and accompanied him for a whole year on his journeys between Beyrout and Babylon, faithfully fulfilling her duties. She even milked the camels. When she had grown tired of the nomad life she built herself a charming palace at Damascus, where her latest husband, whenever he came to Damascus, found hospitality for some days. I had heard nothing of her since 1855, when I met her here dressed as an Arab woman, and, notwithstanding the wrinkles in her face, still beautiful. Soon after she won the lawsuit against her first husband, and with it a colossal fortune, which will probably go to her relatives in England, for she had no children, as far as I know." the superb red stone walls-sixty feet high-so suggestive of the imperial grandeur and pomp that once reigned within them; enshrining the magnificent palace-1600 feet east-and-west by 3200 feet north-and-south-with its noble Gateway and marvellous vestibule (its central octagonal court finely carved with sentences from the Koran and with flowers); its second Gateway, and, looking out on the broad Jumna, its Hall of Public Audience, of white marble with thirty-two red columns, white marble throne standing on marble pillars, and platform of white marble on which the vizier used to stand to hand petitions to his imperial master; † the arches hung with curtains of all colours and designs; its Hall of Private Audience (of white marble, with marble floor, and pillars and arches exquisitely wrought and adorned with gilt and inlaid flowers, and inscriptions, the frieze bearing the motto familiar to us from the passage in “Lalla Rookh":— "If there be an Elysium on earth, It is this! it is this!" -alas! conspiracies and assassinations have had their home On one of these columns is shown the mark of the dagger of a Hindoo prince of Chittore, who, in the presence of the Emperor, stabbed to the heart one of the Mahommedan ministers who made use of some disrespectful language towards him. On being asked how he presumed to do this in the presence of his sovereign, he answered in almost the very words of Roderick Dhu : "I right my wrongs where they are given, Sleeman. "Here," says Bernier (very picturesquely), "the monarch every day about noon sits upon his throne, with some of his sons at his right and left; while eunuchs standing about the royal person flap away the flies with peacocks' tails, agitate the air with large fans, or wait with undivided attention and profound humility to perform the different services allotted to each. Immediately under the throne is an enclosure, surrounded by silver rails, in which are assembled the whole body of omrahs, the rajahs, and the ambassadors, all standing, their eyes bent downward, and their hands crossed. At a greater distance from the throne are the mansebdars, or inferior omrahs, also standing in the same posture of profound reverence. The remainder of the spacious room, and, indeed, the whole courtyard, is filled with persons of all ranks, high and low, rich and poor; because it is in this extensive hall that the King gives audience indiscriminately to all his subjects." Many of the precious stones have been picked out from the mosaic work. here); and its once rich and beautiful Gardens,† with marble pavilion, exquisitely luxurious marble baths, and pearly mosque, all described to us by numerous writers, from Heber downwards. "What a falling off" is here! For now only a shadow of power remains to the occupant of the worldfamed, the imperial, Musnud,‡ and the palace has been stripped of its principal treasures, the marvellous Peacock Throne § is gone, having been carried off by Nadir Shah; "Here, thought I, as I entered the apartment, 'sat Aurungzebe, when he ordered the assassination of his brothers Dara and Moorad, and the imprisonment and destruction by slow poison of his son Mahomed, who had so often fought bravely by his side in battle. Here also, but a few months before, sat the great Shah Jehan, to receive the insolent commands of this same grandson Mahomed, when flushed with victory; and to offer him the throne, merely to disappoint the hopes of the youth's father Aurungzebe. Here stood in chains the graceful Sooleman, to receive his sentence of death, by slow poison, with his poor young brother Sipener Shekoh, who had shared all his father's toils and dangers, and witnessed his brutal murder. Here sat Mahomed Shah, bandying compliments with his ferocious conqueror, Nadir Shah, who had destroyed his armies, plundered his treasury, stripped his throne, and ordered the murder of a hundred thousand of the helpless inhabitants of his capital, men, women, and children, in a general massacre. . . . Anything more unlike a paradise than this place now is can hardly be conceived."-Sleeman. It is interesting to note here that Aurungzebe in early life "devoted himself to study. In after life he knew the Koran by heart, and his memory was a storehouse of the literature, sacred and profane, of Islam. He had himself a facility for verse, and wrote a prose style at once easy and dignified, running up the complete literary gamut from pleasantry to pathos. His Persian letters to his sons, thrown off in the camp, or on the march, or from a sick-bed, have charmed Indian readers during two centuries, and still sell in the Punjaub bazaars. His poetic faculty he transmitted in a richer vein to his eldest daughter, whose verses survive under her nom de plume of The Incognita."-Hunter. †The buildings in the famous Shahlimar Gardens (which now appear to be a neglected waste) have been taken, we understand, as materials for modern houses. The King of Delhi receives a monthly allowance of 100,000 rupees for the support of himself and the royal family (which, with his retinue, is said to number several thousand persons). His movements are confined to the neighbourhood of Delhi, and he is not permitted to confer titles on any chiefs or princes dependent on or in alliance with the British Government, or on any British officers. We have disallowed His Majesty's proposition for the introduction of his own currency and measures; and the presentation of nuzzurs to His Majesty is permitted only in certain very special cases; while nuzzurs to the Queen have been entirely discontinued. His Majesty, however, and several members of the royal family enjoy certain Crown lands, in addition to their "allowance"; and a revenue of £300,000 is derived from these, a great part of which, however, is spent in the King's name by our Resident. §"This chair of state was supported on six large feet of massive gold set with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. But its principal ornaments, which give it its name, were two peacocks of gold with spread tails, all fashioned |