I have since more than once visited this and similar places, which may be compared to wrecks which the onward flow of our advancing power leaves behind it, and as I have stood and mused amongst them, have pleased myself by indulging in dreamy speculations touching the histories of the surrounding sleepers (for all have their little histories), of all their hopes, fears, and cares, here for ever laid at rest.
We extended our excursion to some distance beyond the cemetery, and visited the mausoleum of a Mahomedan prince or saint, the history of which I have forgotten. I have now only a faint remembrance of its mosaic and lattice-work—its inlaid scrolls from the Koran—the sarcophagus covered with an embroidered carpet, the lamps around, and the ostrich eggs suspended from the vaulted roof.
On returning home to the old general’s house, rather late, we found two or three of his friends, invalid officers of the garrison, assembled to do justice to his roast beef and other Christmas fare. A very social party we had; the general “shouldered his crutch,” and the invalid guests gave us plenty of Indian legendary lore; all hearts expanded under the influence of good cheer, and a couple of bottles of “Simkin Shrob” (Champagne), which the general produced as if it had been so much liquid gold, reserved for high days and holidays.
A glass or two of champagne is your grand specific for giving the blue devils their quietus, and liberating those light and joyous spirits which wave their sparkling wings over the early wine-cup and the genial board; but, like other ephemeræ, soon pass away, drowned, perhaps, like flies, in the liquid from whence they spring, leaving but a pleasing remembrance of their having once existed.
The next morning, after breakfast, the cornet and I rode back to Sultanpore, and in a few days I bade him adieu, and in a short time found myself sound in wind and limb, but quite out of rootie mackun (“bread and butter”), and other river stores, in sight of the far-famed fortress of Allahabad, at the confluence of the Jumna and Ganges.
The view of this fortress, with its lofty walls and numerous towers, is, as you approach it, very striking; one sees few such imposing masses in England; and as for our feudal castles, few of them are much bigger than the gateways of such places as I am describing.
The fort which occupies the point where these two famous rivers meet, though perfectly Oriental in its general character, has been “pointed,” and strengthened in accordance with the principles of European fortification, particularly on the land side. It is impregnable to a native force, and one of the principal depôts of the Upper Provinces. This, as is well known, is one of the Prayagas, or places of Hindoo pilgrimage.
During the great Melah, or fair, which subsequently it was often my lot to witness, the concourse of people who assemble here from all parts of the Hindoo world, from the Straits of Manaar to the mountains of Thibet, is prodigious. The sands below the fort exhibit, on that occasion, a sea of heads, intersected by lines of booths, and here and there an elephant or a camel towering above the congregated mass.
The point where the all-important regenerating dip is effected, is covered by the many-coloured standards of the Brahmins and Fakeers, looking at a distance like a dahlia show, or a gaudy-coloured bed of tulips.
In crossing over to the fort, in my bolio, I was forcibly struck by the very different appearance in the water of the two streams. The one, the Jumna, deep, blue, and pure; the other, the Ganges, yellow and turbid. It was curious to observe them blending in many a whirlpool and eddy—the flaky wreaths of the dirty old “Gunga-Jee” infusing themselves into the transparent element of the sister river.