31. That is to say, the revenue administration of Bengal, Bihār, and Orissa in 1765.
32. He is now Emperor, having succeeded his father, Akbar Shāh, in 1837. [W. H. S.] He is known as Bahādur Shāh II. In consequence of his having joined the rebels in 1857, he was deposed and banished. He died at Rangoon in 1862, and with him ended the line of Emperors of Delhi. He was born on the 24th of October, 1775, and so was in his sixty-first year when the author met him. His father was about seventy-eight (eighty lunar) years of age at his death.
33. 'Basant' means the spring. The full name of this festival of the spring time is the Basant Panchamī.
34. According to Harcourt (The New Guide to Delhi, 1866), the tomb of Īltutmish was erected by his children, the Sultānas Rukn-ud-dīn and Razīa, who reigned in succession after him for short periods, that is to say, Rukn-ud- dīn Fīrōz Shāh for six months and twenty- eight days, and the Empress Razīa for about three years, from A.D. 1236 to 1239. (See Carr Stephen, p. 73.) Īltutmish died in April, A.D. 1236, not in 1235. Fergusson observes that this tomb is of special interest as being the oldest Muhammadan tomb known to exist in India. He also remarks (p. 509) that the effect at present is injured by the want of a roof, which, 'judging from appearance, was never completed, if ever commenced'. Harcourt (p. 120) states that 'Fīrōz Shāh, who reigned from A.D. 1351 to A.D. 1385 [sic, 1388], is said to have placed a roof to the building, but it is doubtful if there ever was one, as there are no traces of the same. Cunningham and Carr Stephen (p. 74) both find sufficient evidence remaining to satisfy them that a dome once existed. Fanshawe (p. 269) says 'that the chamber was intended to be roofed is clear from the remains of the lowest course of a dome on the top of the south wall; but, if it was built for her father by Sultan Raziya, as seems probable, it is quite possible that the dome was never completed'. The interior, a square of 29½ feet, is beautifully and elaborately decorated, and in wonderful preservation considering its age and the exposure to which it has been subjected. The walls are over seven feet thick, the principal entrance being to the east. The tomb is built of red sandstone and marble; the sarcophagus is in the centre, and is of pale marble.
35. Sultan Ghiyās-ud-dīn Balban reigned from February, A.D. 1266 to 1286. I cannot discover any authority for the statement that he finished the Kutb Mīnār, and 'added the church'. It is not clear which 'church', or mosque, the author refers to. For a notice of Balban's tomb and buildings, see Carr Stephen, pp. 79-81, He certainly did not finish the Kutb Mīnār.
36. See A.S.R., vol. i, p. 199. 'Top of the Kutb Mīnār.—This octagonal stone pavilion was put up in A.D. 1826 over the Mīnār by Major Smith, of the Engineers, who had the superintendence of the repairs of the Kutb, but it was taken down by the order of Government' (Harcourt, The New Guide to Delhi, p. 123). This 'grotesque ornament' was removed in 1848 by order of Lord Hardinge, and bereft of its wooden pavilion, which had carried a flag-staff (Carr Stephen, p. 64; Fanshawe, p. 266). It has now been moved farther and more out of sight.
37. This alleged outrage does not appear to have really occurred. The author seems to have been misinformed about the position of Alā-ud-dīn's tomb, which still exits in the central room of a building, the eastern wall of which is in part identical with the western wall of the extension of the Kutb Mosque, built by Īltutmish (Carr Stephen, op. cit., p. 88). Fanshawe agrees (p. 272).
38. The tomb desecrated by Mr. Blake is on the right of the road leading from the Kutb Mīnār to the village of Mihraulī, and is either that of Adham Khān, whom Akbar put to death in A.D. 1562 for the murder of Shams-ud-dīn Muhammad Atgah Khān, one of the Emperor's foster fathers, or the neighbouring 'family grave enclosure' of his brothers, known as the Chaunsath Khambhā, or Hall of Sixty-four Pillars. Adham Khān's tomb is still, or was until recently, used as a rest-house (Fanshawe, pp. 14, 228, 242, 256, 278; Carr Stephen, pp. 31, 200, pl. ii). The best-known of the 'kokahs', or foster-brothers, of Akbar is Azīz, the son of Shams-ud-dīn above mentioned. Azīz received the title of Khān-i-Azam (Von Noer, The Emperor Akbar, transl. by Beveridge, vol. i, pp. 78, 95; and Blochmann, Āīn-t-Akbarī, vol. i, pp. 321, 323, &c.). The young chief of Jaipur died in 1834, and in the course of disturbances which followed, the Political Agent was wounded, and Mr. Blake, his assistant, was killed (D. Boulger, Lord William Bentinck, 'Rulers of India' series, p. 143). I cannot find mention in any authority of Imām Mashhadī. Mr. Fraser's murder has been fully described ante chapter 64.
[CHAPTER 68]
New Delhi, or Shāhjahānābād.