[555] Perfect plans of this palace exist in the War Department of India. It is a great pity the Government cannot afford the very few rupees it would require to lithograph and publish them. Without such plans it is very difficult to make any description intelligible. That in Keene’s ‘Handbook of Agra,’ though useful as far as it goes, is on too small a scale and not sufficiently detailed for purposes of architectural illustration.
[556] When we took possession of the palace every one seems to have looted after the most independent fashion. Among others, a Captain (afterwards Sir John) Jones tore up a great part of this platform, but had the happy idea to get his loot set in marble as table tops. Two of these he brought home and sold to the Government for £500, and they are now in the India Museum. No one can doubt that the one with the birds was executed by Florentine, or at least Italian artists; while the other, which was apparently at the back of the platform, is a bad copy from Raphael’s picture of Orpheus charming the beasts. As is well known, that again was a copy of a picture in the Catacombs. There Orpheus is playing on a lyre, in Raphael’s picture on a violin, and that is the instrument represented in the Delhi mosaic. Even if other evidence were wanting, this would be sufficient to set the question at rest. It certainly was not put there by the bigot Aurungzebe, nor by any of his successors.
[557] It ought in fairness to be added that, since they have been in our possession, considerable sums have been expended on the repair of these fragments.
[558] The excuse for this deliberate act of Vandalism was, of course, the military one, that it was necessary to place the garrison of Delhi in security in the event of any sudden emergency. Had it been correct it would have been a valid one, but this is not the case. Without touching a single building of Shah Jehan’s there was ample space within the walls for all the stores and matériel of the garrison of Delhi, and in the palace and Selim Ghur ample space for a garrison, more than doubly ample to man their walls in the event of an émeute. There was ample space for larger and better ventilated barracks just outside the palace walls, where the Sepoy lines now are, for the rest of the garrison, who could easily have gained the shelter of the palace walls in the event of any sudden rising of the citizens. It is, however, ridiculous to fancy that the diminished and unarmed population of the city could ever dream of such an attempt, while any foreign enemy with artillery strong enough to force the bastioned enceinte that surrounds the town would in a very few hours knock the palace walls about the ears of any garrison that might be caught in such a trap.
The truth of the matter appears to be this: the engineers perceived that by gutting the palace they could provide at no trouble or expense a wall round their barrack-yard, and one that no drunken soldier could scale without detection, and for this or some such wretched motive of economy the palace was sacrificed!
The only modern act to be compared with this is the destruction of the summer palace at Pekin. That, however, was an act of red-handed war, and may have been a political necessity. This was a deliberate act of unnecessary Vandalism—most discreditable to all concerned in it.
[559] A plan of this garden, with the Taje and all the surrounding buildings, will be found in the ‘Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,’ vol. vii. p. 42.
[560] From its design I cannot help fancying that this screen was erected after Shah Jehan’s death. It certainly looks more modern.
[561] There are eight photographs of it in Capt. Lyon’s collection, and many also by others.
[562] Page 478, et seqq.