When a man of authority and weight could make such a jingo speech as that of Sir Syed Ahmed at Lucknow in 1887—who in the extremity of his contempt for the Hindu said, “We do not live on fish; nor are we afraid of using a knife and fork lest we should cut our fingers (cheers). Our nation is of the blood of those who made not only Arabia but Asia and Europe to tremble. It is our nation which conquered with its sword the whole of India, although its peoples were all of one religion”—one realises how deep-set is the antagonism still existing. Though forming a minority, fifty or sixty million descendants of a powerful race sharing such sentiments cannot be ignored; and it is obvious that the feud between the two races must for a long period yet form one of the great difficulties and problems of Indian politics.
A few years ago the Hindus tied a pig at night-time in the midst of the Jumma Mosque at Delhi, where it was found in the morning by the infuriated Mahomedans. They in retaliation cut up a brahman cow and threw it into a well used by Hindus. Street fights and assassinations followed and many people were killed—and the affair might have grown to a large scale but for the interference of British troops. Such little amenities are not infrequent, at any rate in certain districts.
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There is a big horse-fair going on here just now. A hundred booths or more arranged in four little streets in form of a cross, with decorations. All round, bare sandy land with horses tied up for sale. The Cabulees—great tall men with long hair and skin coats, fur inside, and ramshackle leggings and shoes—ride in with their strings of horses, 300 or 400 miles from the frontier—where they are obliged to pile their arms until they return, as they would play the deuce in the country if they were to bring their guns with them. They look tidy ruffians, and no doubt would overrun the country if not held back by the English or some military power.
Outside the fair is a wrestling arena, with earth-banks thrown up round it, on which a motley crowd of spectators was seated to-day. Saw several bouts of wrestling. The Aligarh champion’s challenge was accepted by a big Punjaubee, a fellow from Meerut, over sixty years of age, but remarkably powerful—burly, with small nose, battered ears, and huge frontal prominences like some African chieftain or Western prize-fighter—good-humored too and even jolly till accused of unfair play, when he raged among the mob, and the meeting broke up in insane noise and blows of sticks—a small whirlwind of combatants eddying away for some distance over the plain. It was characteristic though, that when they had had enough of fighting, the two parties came back and appealed for fair play to Beck and me—the only two Englishmen present—though there did not seem the least reason why they should, and we were quite unable to afford them any proper satisfaction.
CHAPTER XVI.
DELHI AND AGRA.
The train rushes over an iron girder bridge, crossing the Jumna, into Delhi. There are sandy flats and bits of garden by the river-side, and then the great red-sandstone walls of the fort, 30 or 40 feet high, surmounted by remnants of the old white marble palace of Shah Jehan, looking out eastward over the great plain. Here are the Pearl Mosque—a little pure white shrine—the Shah’s private audience hall, the zenana apartments, and the royal baths, still standing. The women’s apartments are certainly lovely. White and polished marble floor and marble walls inlaid with most elegant floral and arabesque designs in mosaics of colored stones, and in gold; with marble screens of rich lace-like open work between the apartments and the outer world; and a similarly screened balcony jutting over the fort wall—through which the river and the great plains beyond are seen shimmering in the heat. The private audience hall is of like work—a sort of open portico supported on some twenty marble columns, with marble floor and rich mosaic everywhere (see [illustration]), and the baths the same. Indeed the old Shah with his fifty queens must have had some high old times in these baths—one for himself, one for the queens, and one for his children, all opening conveniently into each other.
Behind the fort used to be the densest part of the city; but after the Mutiny this was cleared away, and now an open space extends from the fort walls up to the Jumma Mosque and the present Delhi.
DEWAN KHAS, OR AUDIENCE HALL, IN PALACE AT DELHI.