LUCKNOW TO CAWNPORE AND AGRA.—TAJ MAHAL AND FUTTEHPOOR SIKRA.
From Lucknow to Cawnpore our friends had a ride of a little over two hours, through a fertile country, which was quite flat and uninteresting—a repetition of the journey from Benares to Lucknow. Cawnpore stands on a level plain, on the right bank of the Ganges, and covers a large area of ground; it would be almost without interest were it not for the terrible atrocities of Nena Sahib and his followers during the Mutiny. A sad prominence was given to Cawnpore in 1857, so that few travellers will care to pass it without looking at the memorials of the events which at one time agitated the whole civilized world.
LOW-CASTE INHABITANTS OF CAWNPORE.
A couple of hours will suffice for seeing the points of interest, and it happened that the train for the north gave the Doctor and his young companions all the time they needed for the excursion. They engaged a carriage and started at once, and as they rode along the Doctor told in brief the story of Cawnpore.
Nena Sahib was a native prince of enormous wealth; a few years before the Mutiny he had a lawsuit with the East India Company, which was decided against him, and from that time he had the most bitter hatred for the English, though he associated freely with them, and professed the warmest friendship. He entertained them often at his palace, which was filled with European furniture and pictures, and when the rebellion broke out no one supposed he had favored it or would take any part in the hostilities.
General Wheeler, who commanded Cawnpore at that time, was so impressed with the Nena's loyalty that he asked him for a guard of cavalry to protect the treasury, and it was promptly given. The revolt began on the 4th of June: the native cavalry burnt their barracks and buildings near them. The other troops joined them, and then all united with the Nena's soldiers in plundering the treasury. The English gathered in an intrenchment, and on the 6th of June they were attacked by Nena Sahib's troops, the Nena himself taking command, and directing the assault. For three weeks it was kept up, and the sufferings of the English were terrible. Men, women, and children were crowded together in a small intrenchment, with no shelter from the terrible heat of the summer sun, and many of them died of exposure.
On the 27th of June the attack was suspended for a moment, and a letter came from the Nena offering safe-conduct to Allahabad for the garrison, if it would surrender. The terms were accepted, and the garrison went to some boats that were waiting at the river's bank a mile away. As soon as they were on board it was found that the boats were fast in the sand, and before they could be moved the rebels began firing upon them, and at the same time threw torches on the thatched roofs, which instantly blazed up. Out of two hundred persons in all, only four escaped.
From this time to the middle of July Nena Sahib was master of Cawnpore. He amused himself by butchering all the Englishmen that fell into his hands, and devised the most cruel forms of torture for this bloody work. The women and children were kept prisoners in a building that had formerly been an assembly-room, and on the night of the 16th of July, when it was found that Havelock's troops were advancing, and the rebel array was being defeated, the order was given for their slaughter. The bodies of the victims were thrown into a well near the building; not only the dead but the living were thrown there, and when the English entered the place they were told by some of the natives how the butchery had been conducted, and that for hours afterward any one passing the well could hear the sound of groaning.
THE MEMORIAL WELL AT CAWNPORE.
The carriage took our friends to General Wheeler's intrenchment, where a memorial church has since been erected, to the ghaut, or landing-steps, where the massacre on the boats was perpetrated, and then to the scene of the worst butchery near the terrible well. The building has disappeared, and in its place is a cemetery containing the graves of those who perished there. Frank observed that many of the graves were nameless, and the guide said that the remains of only a few of the victims could be recognized. Over the well is a stone platform supporting the figure of an angel, and around the platform is an octagonal screen of marble of beautiful design. An inscription on the pedestal of the statue makes the melancholy record of the casting of "a great company of Christian people, chiefly women and children," into the well by the orders of the rebel Nena Sahib.
There is nothing of special interest in the hundred miles between Cawnpore and Agra, as the country presents the same features of flatness and monotony it has hitherto displayed. It was evening when our friends reached the city; they had hoped for daylight in order to have a distant view of the Taj Mahal, but were doomed to disappointment. This did not greatly matter, however, as they were sure to have all kinds of views of the famous mausoleum during their stay, and they went to bed and slept soundly.
Their first excursion in the morning was to the Fort of Agra, which includes the palace, the Pearl Mosque, and several other buildings of more or less interest; its walls are of red sandstone and of massive construction, so that they have suffered very little during the three centuries the fort has existed. Several hours were spent inside the fort, and there was so much to attract their attention that the boys could hardly realize how rapidly the time had passed. They agreed with the Doctor that the Motee Musjid, or Pearl Mosque, was the finest of all the buildings within the walls of the fort, and were ready to adopt the words of Bayard Taylor, who pronounced it the pearl of all mosques of small dimensions, and absolutely perfect in style and proportions.
Next to the Taj Mahal, the Motee Musjid is the great attraction of Agra. It stands close to the wall of the fort, and its three domes have been compared to bubbles that might be blown away by a gust of wind. Domes, roof, walls, pillars, floors, and all are of white marble, and the whole work is finished as finely as though intended for examination under a microscope. It is not a closed building, like the mosques of Cairo and Constantinople; one side is quite open to a large quadrangle, and as you stand in the latter, with the sun of India beating down on your head, you can see to the very depths of all the arches that support the domes and roof. Doctor Bronson said it was a most perfect specimen of the Saracenic arch, and the boys found that as the arches cut into each other the perspective from any point of view was absolutely bewildering.
VIEW OF THE TAJ MAHAL FROM THE GARDEN.
They ended their visit to the Pearl Mosque by climbing the roof, and looking down the river some two miles or more, where the Taj Mahal glistened in the sunlight and pushed its dome-like globe far into the sky. In the afternoon they visited the Taj, and remained there till the sun was setting: they went there again and again during the three or four days they remained at Agra, and when at last they left the city their curiosity and their love of the beautiful tomb of the wife of Shah Jehan were far from satisfied. Frank was the historian of this part of their travels, as we will learn by the following letter:
"I thought we had seen several beautiful structures in our travels thus far, and so we have; but none of them can compare with the Taj Mahal. Thanks to the care bestowed upon it by the East Indian Government, it is as perfect to-day as it was 200 years ago, when the builders delivered it to the emperor who ordered it. It is not a mosque but a tomb, and it is the handsomest tomb in the world. That you may know how it happened to be built, I will tell you something of its history.
"Shah Jehan, one of the Mogul Emperors of India, was married, in 1615, to Moomtaz-i-Mahal. They lived very happily together till she died, in 1629, and then the emperor determined to build her the finest tomb the world had ever seen, in the garden that had been her favorite resort. He summoned all the best architects of the time, and asked them to compete for the contract; his choice fell on Eesa Mohumed Effendi, who had been sent to him by the Sultan of Turkey. Several years were consumed in preparing the plans, more in collecting the necessary materials, and more in the work of construction, so that the building was not finished till upward of twenty years after the death of the lady in whose honor it was erected.
"Various figures are given for the cost, and the majority of them are not far from $15,000,000. It is said that 20,000 workmen were employed for twenty-two years in collecting materials and building the Taj Mahal; and as nearly all the labor was forced, there was great distress and mortality in the surrounding country. Doubtless the peasantry had little cause to revere the memory of the queen whose death brought them so much calamity. A poet represents them as saying,
"'Have mercy, God, on our distress,
For we, too, die with our princess.'
"It is a perfect building and not a ruin, and it is hard to believe that it is more than 200 years since the lovely Moomtaz-i-Mahal was laid here to rest. The situation contributes largely to the general effect of the work. The Taj stands on the bank of the Jumna River, and in the midst of a plain which is unbroken in every direction except by the Fort of Agra, and a few low hillocks. No matter from what direction you approach it, the Taj is visible for miles, and its dazzling whiteness is more impressive from a distant than in a near view.
GATE-WAY OF GARDEN, TAJ MAHAL.
"It is at the end of a large garden where Moomtaz loved to wander. You pass a massive gate-way—itself a fine work of architecture—and look along an avenue of cypresses at the building of which you have heard so much. The view is somewhat spoiled by the garden, as you see only the tops of the minarets, and less than half the building itself. The best view is from the other side of the river, as it is quite unobstructed, and no part of the grand spectacle is lost. The central building and all its surroundings are included, and it is quite possible that the architect made his plans from this stand point.
FRONT VIEW OF THE TAJ MAHAL.
"First there is a broad platform of red sandstone at the end of the garden, and about four feet above it. On this there is a marble platform eighteen feet high and 313 feet square, white marble entirely, or at least externally. There is a tower or minaret 137 feet high at each corner of this platform, and the building in the centre is 186 feet square, except that the corners are cut off opposite each of the towers. The mausoleum thus takes the form of an octagon, with four of its sides broader than the other four. Each of the broad sides has a grand entrance like a half-dome, that rises nearly to the cornice, while on each side of the entrance there are two arches, one above the other. Around this magnificent door-way are Arabic inscriptions, consisting of black marble inlaid upon pure white, and the spaces left by the curving of the arches are similarly ornamented with mosaic scroll-work. It is said that the whole of the Koran, or Mohammedan Bible, is on the walls of the Taj, and all of it inlaid in stone.
"There is a dome at each of the four corners of the building, while there is a large one in the centre that swells from its base, so that at a distance it looks like a ball suspended in the air. The architect's attempt in the construction of this great central sphere was as daring as it is successful. Doctor Bronson says that of all the domes he has seen in other parts of the world, none can compare in beauty with that of the Taj.
"Now picture the above in your mind if you can, and then add a mosque of red sandstone on either side, and on the level of the lower platform. I say 'on either side' for completing the idea at the risk of incorrectness. The building to our left, as we look from across the river, is really a mosque, and was intended for purposes of worship, while that on the right is of no sanctity whatever; it was simply erected for the artistic completeness of the picture, and is known as the Jowab, or 'Answer.' Without these buildings the Taj appears too high for its breadth, but when they come in view the effect is perfect. Height and breadth are exactly proportioned, and it would need a very bold critic to suggest an alteration.
THE PRINCESS OF SHAH JEHAN.
"The tombs of Shah Jehan and his wife are in a vault beneath the floor, while the monuments for show are on the floor itself, and surrounded with a marble screen. If you have any doubt about the building having been erected for the lady, you will find it vanish as you enter; her tomb and monument are exactly beneath the centre of the dome, while those of her disconsolate husband are at one side. And here again is a marvel of the Taj workmanship; tombs, monuments, screen, walls, and pillars are covered with mosaic work, chiefly of flowers and scrolls, with many passages from the Koran. The scriptural texts are in black marble, but the flowers and scrolls are of jasper, carnelian, agate, and other semi-precious stones, with here and there an addition of mother-of-pearl. And in nearly every instance it is as carefully done as a Florentine brooch, and you do not wonder, when you have seen it, at the great cost of the work. It is as though we should attempt to cover the New York Post-office with frescoes as fine as the most delicate engravings on steel.
"We saw a single flower containing more than thirty pieces of stone, and yet the whole flower was not more than an inch in diameter. There are hundreds and hundreds of these flowers, and there is a vast amount of stems and scroll-work and sacred writings, and as you look around you are fairly bewildered with the display. Bishop Heber says the builders of the Taj 'designed like Titans and finished like jewellers;' the wealth and elaboration of the interior are in full keeping with its great external beauty and symmetry.
"There is a wonderful echo in the dome of the Taj; it repeats every sound of the voice with great distinctness, but will disappoint any one who tries to sing a complicated piece of music beneath it. If the notes are at all rapid, the echo runs them into one another, and makes a complete discord, but it is not so with very slow music. An English writer says the chord of the seventh produces a very beautiful effect, and it was this chord that Bayard Taylor heard and described as floating and soaring overhead in a long, delicious undulation, fading away so slowly that you hear it after it is silent, as you see, or seem to see, a lark you have been watching after it has been swallowed up in the blue vault of heaven.
"An English lady, who visited the Taj some years ago, said to her husband as they walked away from the building, 'If I could be assured of such a monument to my memory, I would willingly die to-morrow.' They were newly married, and the husband was not at all wealthy; consequently, the desired assurance was not given, and the lady did not die. Probably there are many ladies and men, too, that have seen the Taj who would share her opinion, as the building is, beyond dispute, the finest of its kind on the face of the globe."
GATE-WAY OF SECUNDRA GARDEN.
Thus ended Frank's letter. The Doctor pronounced it an excellent description of the Taj Mahal, and was sure it would be read with interest by all the Bassett family, and anybody else who could have access to it.
Fred's turn for letter-writing came next. An excursion had been arranged for visiting some interesting ruins at Futtehpoor-Sikra, twenty-one miles from Agra, and the account of this journey was assigned to Frank's cousin. The young man went at his task with great enthusiasm, and with the following result:
TOMB OF THE EMPEROR AKHAR AT AGRA.
"Futtehpoor-Sikra was once a city three miles in length, with a rocky hill in the centre. The Mogul Emperor, Akbar, father of the Emperor Juhangeer, selected it as a royal residence, and built one of the finest palaces in all India on the rocky hill I have mentioned. The city has gone, and its site has been converted into fields; the ruins of the palace remain, and are the most extensive we have yet seen. They are a century older than the Taj Mahal, at Agra, and are not in as good a state of preservation. When I tell you that for nearly a mile along a rocky ridge you have an almost unbroken succession of buildings, you can understand that the palace and its surroundings were on a grand scale.
"To go there we found it necessary to 'lay a dawk,' as they say in India—that is, to arrange for relays of horses along the road. The manager of the hotel attended to the matter and sent out horses the day before we were to visit Futtehpoor-Sikra: there were two relays, one seven miles out and the other fourteen miles, and at each relay we found the horses ready, so that there was no delay in changing. We rolled along over an excellent road, and in two and a half hours we covered the twenty-one miles between Agra and our destination. In many places the road was shaded with tall trees; paroquets and other tropical birds were playing in the branches, and several times we saw monkeys swinging from the limbs, and evidently enjoying themselves.
"The country is generally flat and very fertile; but there are not many objects of interest to be seen on the way. The route we followed is the old one of the emperor's, and we saw traces of a canal that was built for irrigating the land at the time Shah Juhangeer made his home here. We kept a sharp lookout for the ruins, and soon after we passed the twenty-first mile-post there they were. We stopped at what was once the emperor's business-office, but is now kept as a restaurant for the accommodation of visitors; it is at the entrance of the palace grounds, and in just the place where you might expect an office to be situated.
ENTRANCE TO THE GREAT MOSQUE OF DURGAH.
"I am afraid I should weary you if I attempted to describe all the buildings, and so I will pick out a few of the most important. There is, in the first place, the great mosque which some have pronounced the finest in India, and it certainly is a magnificent structure. It is known as the Durgah, and has an entrance that reminded us of the gate of the Taj Mahal, but in some respects it is more imposing. It is said that the entrance did not belong to the mosque originally, but was erected a good many years after the completion of the latter. The mosque is on the highest part of the ridge, and you must climb a series of steps to reach it; the view from the top is quite extensive, and would amply repay the fatigue, even if there were no mosque there to interest us.
"Between the gate-way and the mosque there is a paved court-yard 433 by 366 feet, and the date on the main arch of the building corresponds to our year 1571. The pavement is in good condition, and so is that of the mosque itself; the Government applies the revenues of certain grounds in the vicinity to the preservation of the buildings at Futtehpoor-Sikra, and for the last twenty or thirty years they have not suffered any injury. The mosque has three domes, and a long façade, decorated with texts from the Koran, and with other inscriptions of Moslem origin. It is much larger than the Pearl Mosque, at Agra, but not half so pretty.
"I must tell you that a holy hermit named Sheik Selim lived here in a cave, and it was through his orders to the father of Juhangeer that the palace was built. They showed us the cave close to the mosque where the hermit lived, and hid himself away from the wolves and foxes, and then they brought us to his tomb, which is in the great court-yard I have described. As a work of art it is most remarkable, and we lingered some time to study it.
"The inside of the building containing the tomb is ornamented with paintings and mosaics of flowers, and over the tomb itself there is a canopy set with mother-of-pearl, which presents a beautiful appearance. A wide gallery or veranda runs around the outside of the building; there is a dome in the centre, and the eaves project so as to cover the gallery, and shelter anybody who may be there from the rain.
"The screen between the gallery and the enclosure containing the tomb is of white marble wrought into a sort of lace; Bayard Taylor says it looks as though it had been woven in a loom, and certainly when you examine it from a distance of ten or twenty yards it resembles lace more than anything else. You never saw any carving in marble as pretty as this is, and I wonder that the idea has not been taken up and utilized by marble-workers of to-day. The screen extends all the way round the building, and admits light enough into the interior to give a fine effect to the canopy and other surroundings of the saint's tomb. The whole building is forty-six feet square, and every inch of its surface is finished with the greatest care.
THE PANCH MAHAL.
"We went through the great stables where the emperor's horses were kept, and then to the throne-hall, the council-hall, the houses of the emperor's wives, and to so many other buildings that I can hardly remember the names of them. A curious edifice is the Panch Mahal, which is five stories in height, and each story smaller than the one below it. The use of this strange building is not known.
"Then the guide took us to the Pachisi Board, which is a court-yard laid out in squares something like a chess-board, and surrounded by an elevated gallery. The emperor used to play pachisi—an Eastern game something like backgammon—on this 'board,' and the ladies of the harem acted as 'pieces,' and stepped from one square to another as the moves were made. At one corner of this yard there is a building where the ladies used to play 'hide-and-seek' or 'blindman's-buff;' at least that is the story they tell at the palace, but some of the historians say the place was nothing more nor less than a treasure-room. It must have been a wonderful spot in the days of its glory.
"There are fountains and pools in various parts of the palace-grounds, and one very pretty tank where the empress used to go to bathe. Outside of the walls of the mosque is a deep pool, and here there were half a dozen natives who offered to jump from the walls to the water, a distance of almost a hundred feet. They wanted half a rupee each, and we agreed to pay them, and so they climbed up and jumped. It was a fearful distance, and when they struck the water one after another it sounded like hitting a hammer against a board. In the first part of the descent they kept their limbs in active motion, but as they neared the water they brought their feet close together, and went in as straight as arrows.
"According to the historians, the emperor never lived long at Futtehpoor-Sikra, as Sheik Selim complained of the noise of having the whole court around him, and asked the emperor to move away. The latter then went and built Agra, on the banks of the Jumna; the whole court, with the people of the city around it, moved to the new site, and the wonderful palace was deserted, and has remained so ever since.
"We came back to Agra in the same way, and in the same time as we rode out in the morning. The excursion of the day was one that we shall long remember."