Then we drove on to a spot which is literally a village of the dead, so closely serried are the marble sarcophagi, and where little courts and mosques and mausoleums are visible in all directions.
Our chief wish in coming here was to see the grave of Jehanara Begum, the eldest daughter of Shah Jahan, whose story is so simple and touching. She became a religieuse very young, and declared her intention of never marrying. On her father's disgrace, Jehanara shared his prison and captivity. She is buried here, and her grave is a plain grass one, and the inscription at its head, dictated by herself, tells us the reason. It says: "Let no rich canopy cover my grave. This grass is the best covering for the tomb of the poor spirit. The humble, the transitory Jehanara, the disciple of the sect of the Chistîs, the daughter of the Emperor Shah Jahan."
Here also Prince Jehangir, a son of Akbar II., is buried, who was exiled by the English Government on account of his frequent attempts to murder his brother, and who is said to have died from his excessive love of cherry-brandy. He was the favourite son of the emperor, who always believed that he died of "sighing."
The celebrated Persian poet, Amir Khusran, lies near by, and these, with many other tombs, are surrounded by that exquisite marble trellis-work that forms the most beautiful feature of Mussulman architecture. These tombs lie around or in a small marble court of great purity, from the centre of which rises a tiny dome of marble, whose octagonal angles are marked with black lines. An open colonnade with Satacenic arches richly carved, shows us the tomb of that most sacred Mohammedan saint, Nizam-ud-din, within, whose sanctity still draws bands of pilgrims to his tomb. The wooden canopy of the tomb is inlaid with exquisite mother-of-pearl, that in the dim light looked iridescent, with opal tints of blue and green and purple. A row of ostrich eggs were hung around, and a Koran stood open at his head. The mosque, 600 years old, and very quaintly carved, completes this little world, where so much of interest lies gathered into such small compass. The Chausat Kumba is near by, the sixty-four pillared hall, as it is called, which number is only made up by the cunning device of counting the four sides to each of the square pillars. Returning we look into a baoli or well, a deep tank walled in all round, containing green and slimy water.
The crowd of natives who always accompany the Feringis (Europeans) point upwards, and on the summit of the kiosk of a mosque, forty feet above us we see a man, who, as we look, takes a run and a header into the water. It seems quite a minute that we watch him falling through the air, with his legs wide apart, bringing them quickly together just as he plumps into the water with such thudding force, that you think he must be crushed or cracked by the volition of his own weight. He is up in a moment. The tank being very deep, the diver only goes a few feet down, and does not reach the bottom; then he comes up the steps, shivering and with teeth chattering, for his backsheesh. On account of the height of the surrounding buildings the sun never reaches this tank for more than three or four hours each day, and the water is intensely cold.
And now we have a drive of some four or five miles before us. The ruins cluster thickly about the country here, and we see many of the small mosques which mark the site of a Mohammedan cemetery, with their old grave-stones and white pillars, which show, they say, the spot of a "suttee" over the grave. A tremendous storm overtook us before we reached the Dâk Bungalow, where we were to have "tiffin."
Column, Kutub Minar, Delhi.
Page 329.