CHAPTER VII
AGRA
We left Jaipur for Agra on the 29th of December, finding the usual excited crowd at the station. The train passed through a rather dry, plain country, though varied by crops under irrigation. We changed at a junction named Bandakni, the train we were in going on to Delhi. It was a refreshment station. Here a good tiffin was procurable. Going on about 4.30 in the afternoon, we entered a more fertile and interesting country, the crops being more abundant, and the wells also. There were some fine groves of trees, and distant ranges of hills to be seen. Curious mounds and tumbled boulders varied the plains here and there in places. Peacocks were plentiful, and they even occasionally strayed on to the railway metals at the stations. Antelopes were also to be seen, and once an animal resembling a wolf was seen in the jungle. A jungle, by the way, is not necessarily a slice of tropical forest, full of long grass, tangled creepers, and tigers, but may be any bit of uncultivated country.
We reached Agra about 9 P.M. after a comfortable journey. We put up at the Metropole Hotel—a kind of extended bungalow, with a two-storied centre and two long, low wings of rooms under the usual arcaded arrangement, with a garden in the middle. The rooms were spacious and lofty, but bare, cheerless and cold. The traveller of course must not expect any old-fashioned welcome or personal interest in his comfort or welfare in any country at any modern hostelry in these days. He writes or wires for his room, and he may be thankful if it is ready for him when he arrives. He must be content to be merely No. So-and-so, and may not even see the host or manager at all. There was, naturally, more or less of a rush on Agra about this time, as the preparations for the reception of the Amir of Afghanistan were far advanced, and distinguished visitors were beginning to arrive. The English tourist who had not furnished himself with introductions in such a place was apparently regarded as a mere worm by the superior military and official British circles.
Driving to the fort next morning we were stopped by an English sentry, who produced a written card of Regulations forbidding the entrance of carriages, so we got out and walked through the Emperor Akbar’s great Delhi gate (1566), which is on a fine scale, and passed on to the Pearl Mosque, the Moti Musjid, built by Shah Jehan in 1654—the private chapel of the court of the Mogul Emperors—a beautiful white marble building in a fair court. An Arabic inscription records when it was built and why.
We passed on to the great square of the fort which was busily preparing for the reception of the Amir, who was expected to arrive on the 9th of January. They were actually building out an extra portico in solid masonry adding it on to the existing Durbas Hall (Diwan-i-Khas), which was so blocked with workmen and materials it was not possible to see much inside, and our bearer, who was by way of acting as guide when he could, was roughly turned back by an English official. We made the round of the great Akbar’s Fort, which is certainly on a noble scale, and returning to the Delhi gate by ugly and mean British barrack buildings, which have been put up within its massive walls, we could not but be struck with the contrast between the work of one Empire and that of another. Over Akbar’s great gate, however, floated our Union Flag.
AGGRAVATING AGRA
Our next expedition was to the renowned Taj Mahal, the beautiful marble tomb erected by Shah Jehan in memory of his favourite wife, and which was to be his own monument also. The way thither lies through the cantonments and the government gardens. We passed through great encampments, then in a state of busy preparation. On the road was being erected a large triumphal arch in the Moslem style, upon which native workmen were engaged painting and decorating. Native police in khaki and red turbans lined the route at intervals, and saluted as we drove past. The Viceroy’s camp was beautifully laid out and arranged with turf, walks, and flowers. We saw a procession of native women carrying palms and plants in pots on their heads, from ox-carts unloading them, for the camp. Camping in India, indeed, seems to be a fine art, and is carried out in every detail with the utmost completeness. In the government gardens the ideas of the English landscape gardener were in evidence. They were laid out with serpentine walks and drives in the modern public parks style, the large shadeless stretches of would-be turf struggling to show a little green under repeated waterings, with groups of young trees here and there. A big statue of Queen Victoria was placed conspicuously on the high ground in the centre of one of these desert-like lawns. A little beyond we came to the magnificent gate of the Taj, a noble structure of red sandstone and white marble, approached by steps. Passing through its deep shadow under the great arch the wonderful tomb in all its pearly whiteness, with its graceful dome and slender minarets, rising sparkling in the full sunlight above a green bower of trees against the deep blue of the sky, and reflected in the still water of the long tank, breaks upon the sight like a fairy vision. The tank with terraced walks, flagged with stone, extends from the steps of the entrance gateway to the front of the Taj itself, its long line only broken by a raised marble terrace with seats about half way. Rows of slender cypresses enforce the long perspective which leads the eye up to the shrine. The Moslems certainly felt the importance of spacing and proportion, and the art of leading the eye and preparing the mind for the appreciation of beautiful art and architecture by careful planning of the setting and surroundings of their great temples and tombs. Space is as important an element in their design as the exquisite handicraft which produced their unrivalled detail. The Taj itself is on a raised platform of stone, and is flanked on each side by two noble mosques of red sandstone splendidly inlaid with white marble. It was the rich decorative effect of such materials no doubt which suggested to the Maharajah of Jaipur the painting of his town red, which I refer to in , but the reality compared with the imitation is as wine to water.
