A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil

by T. R. Swinburne

For generations the Moguls had poured in intermittent hordes into Northern India, but it was only in 1556 that Akbar, by defeating the Pathans at Panipat, laid India at his feet. Following up his success he overthrew the Rajputs, and extended his dominion from Afghanistan to Benares. Having conquered the country as a great warrior, he proceeded to rule it as a noble statesman, being “one of the few sovereigns entitled to the appellation both of Great and Good, and the only one of Mohammedan race whose mind appears to have arisen so far above all the illiberal prejudices of that fanatical religion in which he was educated, as to be capable of forming a plan worthy of a monarch who loved his people and was solicitous to render them happy.”[1] This “plan” was to study the religion, laws, and institutions of his Hindu subjects in order that he might govern as far as possible in conformity with Hindu usage. The Emperor Akbar was the first of the Mogul monarchs who was a great architect. The city of Fattepur Sikri being raised by him as a stately dwelling-place until want of water and the unhealthiness of the locality caused him to move into Agra, leaving the whole city of Fattepur Sikri to the owls and jackals, and later to the admiration of the Sahib logue.

[1] Robertson’s India, Appendix.

A palace in Lahore, the fort at Allahabad, and much lovely work in the city of Agra testify to the creative genius of that contemporary of our own Good Queen Bess, the first “Great” Mogul. Jehangir, his son and successor, has left few buildings of note, but his grandson, Shah Jehan, was undoubtedly the most splendid builder of the Mogul Mohammedan period. To him Delhi owes its stately palace and vast mosque—the Jama Masjid—and Agra would be famous for its wonderful palace of dark red stone and fretted marble, even without that masterpiece of Mohammedan inspiration, the world-famed Taj Mahal. The brief period of supreme magnificence came to an end with the last of the “Great” Moguls—Aurungzeb, died in 1707—having only blazed in fullest glory for some century and a half, but leaving behind it some of the noblest works of man.

It seemed somehow very curious, as we drove up through the stately entrance of the Hathi Paon, or Elephant Gate of the fort, to be saluted with a “present arms” by British Tommies clad in unobtrusive khaki, and to reflect that we are the inheritors of the fallen grandeur of the Mogul Emperors; that we in our turn, on many a hard-fought field, asserted our power to conquer; and that since then we have (I trust) so far followed the sound principles of Akbar as to keep by justice and wise rule the broad lands with their teeming millions in a state of peace and security unknown before in India.

Opposite the entrance rise the walls of the Palace of Akbar, curiously decorated with brilliant blue mosaics of animals and arabesques.

We visited the armoury—a remarkably fine collection of weapons—not the least interesting being those taken from the Sikhs and French in the earlier part of the last century. Opposite the armoury, and across a small beautifully-paved court, were the private apartments of Shah Jehan. They reminded me very much of the Alhambra, only, instead of the honeycomb vaulted ceilings, and arches decorated in stucco by the Moors, the Eastern architect inlaid his ceilings with an extraordinary incrustation of glass, usually silvered on the back, but also frequently coloured, and giving a strange effect of mother-o’-pearl inlay, bordering on tawdriness when examined in detail.

It is possible that this coloured glass actually had its intended effect of inlaid jewels, and that the gem-encrusted walls, so enthusiastically described by Tavernier and others, as almost matching the peacock throne itself, may have been but imitation.

Many of the pilasters were, however, very beautiful—of white marble inlaid with flower patterns of coloured stones—while the arched window openings were filled in with creamy tracery of fair white marble.

Leaving the fort after an all too short visit, we crossed to the great mosque built by Aurungzeb. Ascending—from a garden bright with flowers and blossoming trees—a flight of broad steps, we found ourselves at the end of a rectangular enclosure, at each corner of which stood a red column not altogether unlike a factory chimney. In the centre was a circular basin, very wide, and full of clear water, while in front, three white marble domes rose like great pearls gleaming against the cloudless blue. The mosque itself is built of red—dark red—sandstone, decorated with floral designs in white marble.

We climbed one of the minarets, and had a view of the city at our feet, and the green and fertile plains stretching dim into the shimmering haze beyond the Ravee River.