[CHAPTER XXXII.]

IN AND AROUND DELHI.—DEPARTURE FOR SIMLA AND THE HIMALAYAS.

It was just about sunrise when our friends entered the train that was to carry them from Agra to Delhi, a ride of 120 miles along the valley of the Jumna. The boys devoted a part of the time on the road to making an acquaintance with Delhi through the books that were drawn from their satchels; before the train rolled into the station they were well aware that the city claims an antiquity of more than 2000 years, but its history is involved in obscurity until the eighth century. From that date it has been the scene of several attacks and sieges, the last having occurred in 1857, at the time of the Indian Mutiny, when the power of the kings of Delhi was completely broken. The foundations of the present city were laid about 250 years ago by the Emperor Shah Jehan, who determined to exceed anything that had been done at Agra by his grandfather, the great Akbar. The palace or citadel is enclosed by a wall a mile and a half in circuit, and the city by a continuous wall of granite nearly six miles long. The citadel has two gates, and the city ten, all strongly fortified and capable of defence, as the history of the Mutiny sadly illustrates in the loss of English life at the final capture.

Delhi is one of the most interesting cities of India, partly on account of its historical richness and partly by reason of the many varieties of people to be met on its streets, and the splendor of its buildings. That it proved to be so to our young friends is shown by their account of what they saw and did during their visit. There was too much for either of them to write alone; so they wisely divided the labor, and made a joint production for the edification of their families and friends. We are permitted to copy the letter in full:

"Delhi, India, January 15.

"We have seen so much here that we don't know where to begin, and when we have started we sha'n't know where to leave off. Perhaps we had best take things in the order in which we saw them, and if we find our letter is getting too long we can represent the last half of our sight-seeing by two or three 'et cæteras.'

SCENE ON THE CHANDNI CHOWK, DELHI.

"The first thing we did was to go to the Chandni Chowk, which is the Broadway of Delhi; it is more than a hundred feet wide, and has a row of shade-trees in the centre, while on each side are the shops of the wealthy merchants. From morning till night it is crowded with people, and you see more varieties here a dozen times over than you do on Broadway in New York, or on the boulevards of Paris. There are men from Cashmere and Thibet; men from Southern India and Nepaul—Hindoos, Parsees, Arabs, Afghans, and various other tribes and nationalities that we cannot name without making a long list. There are men on horseback, with saddles and trappings richly set in silver, and possibly adorned with semi-precious stones; every little while you see carriages of European construction in which natives are riding, and occasionally a stately elephant moves along with an elegant howdah on his back. Then there are camels from the north, sometimes a dozen of them in a train, each bearing a burden of costly merchandise from the looms of Cashmere, or of grain from the fields around the great city. Native buffaloes are numerous, some with packs on their backs after the manner of camels, and others drawing rude carts with wheels hewn out of single blocks of wood. The scene is more thoroughly Asiatic than any we have yet encountered, and the people have so much color in their dresses that the moving crowd makes you think of a Japanese picture. In spite of the show of poverty in the coolie water-bearers and other low-class laborers, the picture of the Chandni Chowk suggests a great deal of wealth, and you almost expect to see in the next moment the cortege of a Mogul emperor entering by one of the gates and marching majestically toward the palace in all the splendor of the ancient days.

MERCHANTS OF DELHI.

"We went into several of the shops where shawls and other products of Indian looms are for sale; and we also visited the famous jewellery establishments of Delhi where silver is wrought into a great many fantastic forms. If anybody wonders what becomes of all the silver that is taken out of the ground, he has only to come to India. This country, with China and one or two others of the East, has long been known for absorbing a vast amount of silver every year; it is made into jewellery and sold to all classes of people, but principally to those who cannot afford anything more costly. When you remember that there are 200,000,000 people in India, and nearly all of them wear as many silver ornaments as they can afford, you will not be surprised at the consumption of silver.

"We bought some shawls after considerable bargaining, and also some specimens of Delhi jewellery that are very pretty to look at, and possibly to wear. One form of jewellery is made by setting the claws of the tiger into brooches, ear-drops, bracelets, and the like, and the ingenuity of the natives is well displayed in the fanciful forms they give to this kind of work. Then we bought some miniatures painted on ivory, chiefly of the Mogul emperors and empresses, with a few faces of modern days. The native painters produce these portraits in all the fineness of a steel engraving, and in brilliant colors; there can hardly be a prettier piece of painting in the world than a Delhi miniature. There was such an abundance of these paintings offered, that it took us some time to make a selection; the dealers came to the hotel every day after breakfast and dinner, and it seemed as though every one of them had at least a hundred pictures for sale.

THE DEWAN-I-KHAS, DELHI.

"The fort or citadel was the next sight after the Chandni Chowk. Formerly there were about a dozen large buildings in it, and many small ones; but nearly all of the latter and some of the former were destroyed at the time of the Mutiny, or within a few years after it. The finest of the public ones were preserved, and they are certainly great curiosities. There are two magnificent halls—the Dewan-i-Am and the Dewan-i-Khas. In the former the emperor used to give public audience to any one who wished to present a petition, while the latter was a hall of private audience, where nobody could come without special invitation. Both of them are of white marble, and their ceilings are beautifully carved with all sorts of curious designs. The pillars that support the roof are very large, and you only get an idea of their real size when you see a man standing near one of them. The Dewan-i-Khas is smaller than the other, and is more like a pavilion than a room, as it is open on three sides, and the wind can circulate freely through it. They say that the ceiling was once composed of gold and silver filigree-work made by the jewellers of Delhi, and cost a great deal of money; the same room contained the famous 'Peacock Throne,' which received its name on account of its back being made to represent an outspread peacock's tail, set with diamonds and other precious stones. We cannot do better than copy the description of it:

"'The throne was six feet long and four broad, composed of solid gold inlaid with precious gems. It was surrounded by a gold canopy supported on twelve pillars of the same material. Around the canopy hung a fringe of pearls; on each side of the throne stood two chattahs, or umbrellas, symbols of royalty, formed of crimson velvet, richly embroidered with gold thread and pearls, and with handles of solid gold eight feet long, studded with diamonds. The back of the throne was a representation of the expanded tail of a peacock, the natural colors of which were imitated by sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and other precious gems. Its value was estimated by Tavernier, a French jeweller, who saw it, at £6,000,000, or $30,000,000.'

"When we heard about the peacock throne you can be sure we wanted to see it, and asked the guide to show us where it was. He said it was carried away by the great Persian conqueror, Nadir Shah, when he captured Delhi in 1738, and ordered its inhabitants to be massacred. More than 100,000 were killed by his command, and history says that he sat in the Dewan-i-Khas with the captured monarch, while the troops were obeying his command and slaughtering everybody on whom they could lay their hands. Men, women, and children were butchered, and the property carried away from Delhi amounted to a great many millions. The throne was in the centre of the room, and the place where it stood is occupied by a block of marble. We tried to picture the scene when Shah Jehan was in the height of his power, and before the Persians had come to plunder him. According to all accounts, Delhi must have been superior to any other city of the East in barbaric splendor, and her wealth was something fabulous. When the English captured the place, in 1857, the soldiers were allowed to plunder the palace, and they carried away millions of dollars' worth of diamonds, and gold, and other precious things.

"On the block of marble where the peacock throne stood we saw an inscription in Arabic, and asked what it was. The guide said it was famous all over the world, and was as follows: 'If there be an elysium on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this.' The Arabic words are 'Agar furduse baru-i-zamin ast, hamin ast, hamin ast, hamin ast.'

JAMMA MUSJID, OR GREAT MOSQUE.

"We left the palace and proceeded to the Jamma Musjid, or Great Mosque, one of the finest in all India. It stands on a small hill; and as the minarets are 130 feet high, a view from the top of one of them includes the whole of Delhi and a large extent of country around it. To enter it we climbed a long flight of broad steps, and then crossed a court-yard 450 feet square, with a marble tank in the centre. The court-yard has steps on three of its sides, but the principal entrance is on the east, and this was the one our guide led us to. The mosque is on the west side of the court, and is a handsome building, 200 feet by 120; it has three marble cupolas, and is paved throughout with slabs of white marble with a black border, so that its appearance is very rich. There is a good deal of marble carving in and about the mosque, and we were not surprised to learn that it took ten years to complete the building. The proportions of the interior are not as fine as those of the Pearl Mosque, at Agra, and it is evident that the architect tried to make a large building, rather than a strictly handsome one.

"The whole city of Delhi was spread out at our feet like a map, as we looked from the minarets of the mosque. We could trace the streets, or at any rate all the principal ones, and our guide showed us the public buildings, and the points that were made memorable during the Mutiny. But we found our attention drawn to the ruins around Delhi quite as much as to the city itself. Far as we could see toward the south we discovered masses of ruins, or scattered tombs and other buildings; they cover an area ten or eleven miles long by six in width, and it is said that no less than five different cities have been built here. Delhi has been called the Rome of Asia, and certainly the comparison does not appear a bad one.

"Having seen the ruins of the old cities from a distance, we naturally wanted to examine them closely. So our second day was devoted to an excursion, and we started early in the morning for a drive among the remains of ancient Delhi.

"We had our heads filled with tombs, walls, forts, old palaces, towers, and similar things, before we returned. The sight could not fail to impress us with the grandeur of the city of the Mogul emperors, and since we left home we have seen no better illustration of the changes which time works than in Delhi and the surrounding country. Empires and kingdoms that had their capitals here have been overthrown one after another, and in each instance the conquerors have shown little or no respect for the conquered. Magnificent tombs are decaying, palaces are crumbling into ruins, and the gardens which were once the secluded retreats of crowned heads are converted into fields and pastures. Where once were the crowded streets of a populous city there are now only a few straggling natives, who subsist on gratuities received from strangers, and the walls of the forts have gone to decay so that they would be utterly useless for purposes of defence.

THE KUTTUB MINAR.

"The most famous of the sights in the vicinity of Delhi is the Kuttub Minar, which is said to be the tallest column in the world. We are not quite certain as to the correctness of this statement, and will give the figures, so that anybody may correct us. It is divided from the base to the summit into five different stories, and each story has a balcony at its top. The distance between the balconies diminishes in proportion to the diameter of the column, so that as you look upward from the base the column appears a good deal higher than it really is. The lower story is shaped like a polygon, but the others are round, with deep fluting all the way up.

"The first three stories are of fine red sandstone, while the two upper ones are mostly of marble. The whole height of the column is 240 feet, and it is thought that it was originally not far from 300 feet. It is fifty feet in diameter at the base, and thirteen at the top, and is ascended by 375 steps. We did not find the ascent very fatiguing, as we rested at each of the balconies, and took things as easily as we could. Fortunately for us, the day was cool, and there was a fine breeze that required us to put on our overcoats as soon as we reached the top.

THE IRON PILLAR.

"It is not exactly known when the tower was begun or completed, but the inscriptions on and around it indicate that it was built about seven hundred years ago, and the work occupied twenty or thirty years. Evidently somebody wanted to excel it, as there is the beginning of another structure of the same character, but twice the circumference, about 500 feet away. The first story of this new edifice was never completed, and from present appearances it never will be. All around the Kuttub Minar there are ruins of mosques and temples, some of Hindoo and others of Moslem origin. The nearest and largest was the Jamma Musjid, or Great Mosque, of old Delhi, and was built from the ruins of twenty-seven Hindoo temples that were pulled down after the Mohammedans captured the city, about a.d. 1193. There is one arch fifty feet high and twenty-two feet wide, and one of its rooms was 135 feet long, with a roof supported on five rows of marble and sandstone pillars.

"From the ruins of the mosque the guide took us to a well about eighty feet deep, where a group of natives were ready to jump to the water on payment of a small sum. We had seen the same thing at Futtehpoor-Sikra, and were in a hurry to get through with the ruins, and so we refused to witness the performance. The guide told us that the men expected every traveller to pay them for taking this extraordinary leap; that it was their means of living, and they did not pretend to do any other work. The water is said to be very cold, as the sun rarely shines upon it, and nobody can tell how old the well is, or by whom it was made.

TREES IN THE COURT-YARD OF THE MOSQUE.

"In the court-yard of the mosque is an iron pillar twenty-two feet high, with a capital at the top, which is said to date from the Hindoo king who ruled before the Mohammedans came here. The tradition is that he dreaded the fall of his dynasty, and consulted the Bramin priests; they told him that if he could sink an iron pillar, and make it pierce the head of the snake-god Lishay, who supported the world, his kingdom would endure forever. He sunk the shaft, and after a while took it up, to see what effect it had had; it was found covered with blood, and then the priests told him he had hurt the snake without killing him, and his kingdom would come to an end. Their prediction was verified, for soon after this event the Moslems came and captured his kingdom, and put him and many of his followers to death.

"There are some tall trees growing in the court-yard. We did not realize how large they were till we saw a group of natives seated beneath one of them, and waiting to beg from us as we approached. Some of these trees are very old, and show conclusively that the place has been in ruins for a long time.

"We spent two or three hours around the Kuttub Minar, and then returned to Delhi, stopping on the way to see the tombs of several kings and queens, whose names would not be particularly interesting to you, and who have been dust and ashes for hundreds of years. The Government preserves these tombs from injury, and appoints keepers to look after them; but before the English took possession of India there was a good deal of destruction and negligence. It seems to have been the rule with these Eastern monarchs to destroy the works of their predecessors, rather than to preserve them; and if they failed to do so in any instance, it was because the destruction would cost too much, or require a long time.

"There is enough around Delhi to keep a visitor occupied for at least a week, and if he is greatly interested in antiquities he might stay here a month and find something new every day. We are afraid of becoming tedious, and so we will cut this letter short, and say good-bye to Delhi."

From Delhi the party continued its railway journey to Umballa, 161 miles, without stopping, as there was nothing of importance to be seen along the route. Doctor Bronson had telegraphed the day before their departure for dawk garries to be engaged to carry them to Simla, and when the train reached the station a messenger informed them that the carriages had been secured. What the dawk garry is, and what was to be done with it, was a matter of some interest to the boys, as this was their first journey away from the line of the railway. How their curiosity was satisfied we will learn in the next chapter.