The small green parrots (the same that one commonly sees in cages in England) which are common all over India, and which haunt the Taj here and its garden, billing and chattering close by one, are quite a feature of the place; their flight, with the long tail straight behind, is something like a cuckoo’s or a hawk’s. Occasionally one may see a vulture perched upon some point of vantage looking down upon them with an envious eye. In Delhi, walking through a crowded street, I saw a kite swoop down and actually snatch something—some eatable I think—out of a child’s hand a little in front of me. It then soared up into the air, leaving the little one terrified and sobbing on a doorstep.
This great river (the Jumna, and the Ganges the same) and the plain through which it slowly winds have a great fascination for me—the long reaches and sandy spurs, the arid steep banks and low cliffs catching just now the last red light of sunset—here and there a little domed building standing out on a promontory, with steps down to the water—or a brown grass-woven tent on the sands below; the great vultures slowly flapping hitherward through the fading light; a turtle splashing into the water; the full moon mounting into the sky, though yet with subdued glory, and already the twinkle of a light in a house here and there; and on my right this great mountain of marble catching the play of all the heavenly radiances.
She must have been very beautiful, that queen-wife “the crown of the palace,” to have inspired and become the soul of a scene like this; or very lovely in some sense or other—for I believe she was already the mother of eight children when she died. But indeed it does not matter much about external or conventional beauty; wherever there is true love there is felt to be something so lovely that all symbols, all earth’s shows, are vain to give utterance to it. Certainly if anything could stand for the living beauty of a loved creature, it might be this dome pulsating with all the blushes and radiances of the sky, which makes a greater dome above it.
Across the river, just opposite, you dimly distinguish the outline of a vast platform—now mainly ploughed up and converted into fields—on which the good Shah intended to have built a similar or twin tomb for his own body; fortunately however he died long before this idea could be carried out, and now he lies more appropriately by the side of his loved one in the vocal gloom of that lofty interior.
“You say we Mahomedans do not respect our women, yet where in all Europe can you point out a monument to a woman, equal to this?” said Syed Mahmoud triumphantly to me one day. And then one remembers that this precious monument (like so many others that the world is proud of) was made by the forced and famine labor of 20,000 workmen working for seventeen years—and one thinks, “What about them and their wives?”
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Called on a coterie of professors connected with the university college at Agra—A. C. Bose, who is professor of mathematics; Gargaris, professor of physics; Nilmani Dhar, law lecturer; and A. C. Bannerji, judge of small cause court—an intelligent and interesting lot of fellows. I found Bose reading a book on Quaternions; when he learnt that I had known W. K. Clifford at Cambridge he was much interested, and wanted to hear all about him—has read his book on “The Common Sense of the Exact Sciences,” and was interested in the theory of “crumpled space” and the fourth dimension. They told me a good deal about family communism as it exists among the Bengalis, and spoke rather feelingly of its drawbacks—in respect of the incubus of poor relations, etc. They also asked some questions—rather touching—about sending their sons to study in England, and what treatment they might expect at the hands of the English at home—“if it were the same as we receive here, we would never consent to send our sons.” Of course I assured them that their reception in England would be perfectly cordial and friendly. At the same time I said that they must not think ill of the English people generally because of the unfortunate gulf existing between the two races in India; because after all the officials and Anglo-Indians generally—though an honorable body—could not be taken to represent the whole people of England, but only a small section; and that as a matter of fact the masses of the people in England made much the same complaint against the moneyed and ruling sections there, namely, that they were wanting in good manners. Bannerji asked me if I saw the Lieut.-Governor (Sir A. Colvin) at Allahabad, and I said that I had had some conversation with him, and that I thought him a man of marked ability and culture, and probably having more liberality in his real opinions than his natural reserve and caution would allow him to give rein to.
Gargaris is a big-headed logical-minded slowish man who inquired much after the Positivists, and apparently thinks much of them—being indeed of that type himself. Nilmani Dhar seemed very enthusiastic about the Brahmo Somaj, which I cannot say I feel any interest in. He is of course a Theist, but most of the folk now-a-days who go in for Western learning and ideas are Agnostics, and adopt the scientific materialism of Huxley and Tyndall.
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The men in the streets here—and I noticed the same at Nagpore—are very handsome, many of them, with their large eyes and well-formed noses, neither snub nor hooked, and short upper lips. With great turbans (sometimes a foot high) on their heads, and fine moustaches, they look quite martial; but like mermaids they end badly, for when you look below you see two thinnest shins with little tight cotton leggings round them, and bare feet. How they get these leggings on and off is a question which I have not yet been able to solve. Anyhow I have come to the conclusion about the Hindus generally that their legs are too thin for them ever to do much in the world.