but his spiritual life has only just begun, I
and will long continue to inspire the
institution for which he lived and died, and
I
many similar institutions which are certain
to arise from it. He has a worthy successor
in Theodore Morison, who was for some
time his colleague.
Aligarh lies in the most visited part of
India, between Agra and Delhi. Morison
met me at the station, and took me MO
; his house, which had been the home of
Beck. It is the only house which I visited
in India in which abundant signs of culture
were apparent. t The walls were covered
with pictures, and the shelves were lined
with books. I wonder whether any one
in India, excepting Morison and the
156 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN ^TRAVEL
Gaekwar of Baroda, possesses what may
<
be called a library ?
This absence of culture, however obvious
and regrettable, is not to be wondered at.
The civil servant is so much occupied with
desk-work that he has no time or inclination
for any recreation except sport. He leads
an ambulatory existence, he may be removed
at a moment's notice from one station to
another, he has nothing about him which
may be called -a home. How is he to
transport over the long stretches of Indian
travel boxes of books and cases of pictures ?
The country swarms with the worst enemies
of books. White ants eat up the bindings
and devour the contents ; fish insects, a
horror of which I often heard, but which
I never saw, are even more destructive.
Let any one visit the great library at
Calcutta, which the Viceroy is attempting
ALIGARH 157
i
'to reorganise under Mr. Macfarlane in the
Metealfe Hall. A scurvier set of volumes
was never presented to the human gaze ;
they look as if they had been wrecked in
the Indian Ocean, and laboriously recovered
by pearl-divers. Under these circumstances
Anglo-Indians may be excused if they
have few books or pictures ; but those who
possess them in spite of these difficulties
should have a double share of honour.
The College of Aligarh^ covers a large
space of ground, and has many buildings
of a single story, as is common in Indis t
The centre is occupied by a large hall,
j
erected in memory of Sir John Strachey,
which, when I was there, was being used
for an examination. The students are very
numerous, and seemed happy and con-
tented, and much given to games. They
all wore the long coat and the cap which
158 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
'
distinguish Mohammedans from Hindus.
They certainly looked older than English
students, the boys of nineteen who were
being examined appearing to me like
young men of five-and-twenty, while beards
and whiskers were very noticeable.
The results of Aligarh education are
known to every Cambridge man. The
founders of the college not only wished
to place half the population of India in
as good a position to receive instruction as
the other half, but they thought that if
#32 up-country Mohammedans, who are of
a manlier type than the Bengalis, and who
are lovers of the open air, could only be
persuaded to adopt literary tastes and to
train their minds, they might exercise a
great influence over the future of their
country. Whether this can be done still
remains to be seen. I have no statistics
ALIGARH 159
>
before me, but I believe that the natives
who' have obtained places in the Civil
Service are for the most part Hindus.
The importance of the work done at Aligarh
cannot be overrated, and the influence of
a colony of cultivated English men and
women upon those who surround them,
to whatever nationality they belong, is a
precious possession for our great dependency.
My arrangements only allowed me twenty-
four hours in this interesting place. As I
drove to the station, I was able to inspect
the Theodore Beck wall, an erection w$ll
known to his friends, as it is built in
sections, each of which is inscribed with
the name of the person who paid for it.
I found also at the station the newspapers
announcing the fact that I had been ap-
pointed the first Minister of Education under
Lord Curzon, and for forty-eight hours I
160 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
enjoyed the amusement of being the inno-
cent object of the gossip of a continent.
As I was acquainted with the Viceroy's
plans, I knew the news to be false, and
that nothing more was in contemplation
than the establishment of a General Director
of Education, who should bring the work
of the provincial directors into harmony. I
knew also that the post had been offered
to Mr. Orange, of the Education Office,
and had been accepted by him. But some
day or other a Minister of Education will
hiave to be appointed, as no one with less
authority than a member of the Viceroy's
Council will be able to weld into a con-
sistent whole the confused chaos of Indian
education, and to give educational questions
their due importance by the side of the
other interests which occupy the attention
of the rulers of our Indian Empire.
Delhi
> 161
II
XV
DELHI
"\ /T Y Brahmin friend, who had been my
guide through Benares and Agra,
was not able to accompany me to Delhi,
from an attack of illness ; and I should
have been like a pelican in the wilderness,
if his place had not been supplied by a
Mohammedan friend, also a graduate of
Cambridge, who took possession of me when
I arrived, and did not relax his kindly
care until he had seen me safely installed
i
in the train for Baroda. Delhi, or, as it
ought to be called, Dehli, is the real capital
of India that is, it is the capital of the
163
164 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
i
dynasty which ruled India for many genera-
tions with majesty and power, and made'her
name respected throughout Europe and
the world. The extinction of the line of
the Mogul Emperors gave the best
guarantee for the permanence of the British
Raj, as it removed all competitors who
could claim the throne with any show of
right.
At the same time Delhi, the city, can
hardly be called a capital ; indeed, its proper
name is Shahjahanabad, the city of Shah
^ahan. The country for miles round Delhi
is covered with the remains of cities, more
or less conspicuous, which have been the
capitals of Mogul sovereigns at different
times. Akbar, as we have seen, had his
i
capital at Agra, and was nearly placing
it at Sikri. When the Viceroy held his
great Durbar at Delhi on January ist, 1903,
DELHI 165
t
he called into existence a new city of
twenty thousand inhabitants, furnished with
roads, tramways, a complete system of
drainage and water supply, electric light,
and other appliances of civilisation. It )
lasted only for a few weeks, but it was f
an exact counterpart to the other centres |
of power, which in that wide plain have )
enjoyed an ephemeral existence. The |
reason why the fort of Delhi has been '
|
regarded for so long as the central palace
of India is not so much because the Mogul
Emperors fixed their seat there for *twp
centuries, as that, having once chosen it ;
as their habitation, they were not strong
enough to found another.
The central attraction of Delhi is, of^
f
course, the fort, now a place of B/itishV
arms, but formerly a fortified palace. It
contains the building which, next to the
166 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
f
>
Taj, impresses its image on the traveller's ,
mind more than anything else in India
I mean the private hall of audience, the ;
Dewan-i-Khas. Like other Indian buildings, j
no description can portray it, no photograph
give an idea of it, no painting represent
it. Let me copy what the guide-book
1
says of it : " Proceeding towards the left,
the Hall of Special Audience, the House;
of Lords, is reached ; a smaller hall, in j
echelon to the 'first, raised on a small
marble estrade, about four feet high, with
^ small but chastely carved balustrade of
perforated marble on the front side. The
columns of this, the finest hall of its kind
in India, are inlaid below with precious
stones in floral designs, the upper section,
as well as the ceiling and cornice, being
very tastefully gilt."
What idea can these words give to
DELHI 167
i
the reader of this wonderful creation,
dignified as a shrine, jewelled like a brooch,
dazzling as a pearl, symmetrical as a flower ?
The white and gold of the roof and the
upper story are in perfect taste, and produce
quite a new impression, notwithstanding
the hackneyed recurrence of these tints
in modern decoration. The artist must
have conceived the effect of these decussating
arches, of the play of delicate colours
under an Indian sun, before he could have
given orders for the work. The Dewan-i- 1
Khas remains a standard and a touchstone,
by which all the great palaces of the
world may be tried and estimated.
A returning Indian, after reading all
that Ruskin has to say about the Doge's
*
Palace at Venice, will decide that it is not
comparable to the Dewan-i-Khas at Delhi.
The builder must have been conscious of
168 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
i
the worth of his ideal, for has he not
written on the walls the famous inscription,
paralleled, indeed, elsewhere, but nowhere
so complete and obvious, " Agar furduse.
baru-i-zamin ast, hamin ast, hamin ast,;
hamin ast," which loses something ini
Moore's translation, "If there be an elysium"
on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this"?
This hall also contained the peacock throne,
which, if it was designed by Austin of
Bordeaux, must have been much more
beautiful than " the four-post bed with
two peacocks and a parrot perched upon
<
the testers," of which the guide-books
tell us.
It is needless to speak of the other
\ buildings of the palace, so many of which
t \ <
-iHvere destroyed in the Mutiny, or have
*
I since been ruined by British restorations,
or converted to the base uses of officers'
DELHI 169
i
quarters. The bathrooms, which must
originally have surpassed the Alhambra in
'.loveliness, whose ceilings offer tantalising
'traces of exquisite ornamentation, have
: been carefully white or blue washed by
(the P.W.D.
The Tommy who showed us round ex-
plained that this had been done for sake
of decency. The British soldiers, entering
the palace after the suppression of the
Mutiny, found the decoration of these
vaultings quite too shocking. The pictures
were immediately covered up, so that tfley
might not corrupt the soldiers' morals, nor
offend their taste ; and they could never,
he said, be uncovered so long as the British
were masters of Delhi. We did not tell
i
him, what we remarked to each other, jthat
as the Mussulman is strictly forbidden to
represent the human or, indeed, any animal
i;o IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
form, any such designs must have been s
confined to the loves of the plants,
which might be considered as innocuous
even to the most perverted imagination.
Dear Tommy ! you were so good, so
well-informed, so conscientious, so anxious
to give every explanation, and, withal, so
philistine and so stupid, that I was quite
charmed with you, and so was my native
companion. I was proud to be your
fellow-countryman. When you showed me
- the balances in the Hall of Justice, and
said that the judges had to pray before
them when about to pronounce their dooms,
I suggested that the next time you were
condemned to a fortnight's C.B., you should
ask your commanding officer whether he
i had* duly offered that prayer. But you
will never be condemned ; you will leave
your regiment with a stainless character, -f
DELHI 171
>
Just outside the fort of Delhi stands the v
Jamnajyiusjid, the great mosque, another'x
creation of Shah Jahan. It is remarkable-
that the great works of this mighty builder
i
were constructed when our own country was
in the throes of a civil war and a political
revolution ; when Germany was being de-
vastated by the Thirty Years' War ; when
France was in disorder, and Italy unquiet.;
Can these events have caused an emigration
of foreign workmen to Pndia ? The great
features of the mosque are its enormous
size and its dignified magnificence.
We visited it on Friday, which is the
Mohammedan Sunday, and found the large
court full of worshippers. We took off
our shoes, and ascended the summit of the
'
highest tower, which commands a splendid
i
lyiew. While we were there a dead body
was brought in, carried on a bamboo bier,
J72 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
and covered with a sheet of unsullied
muslin. The bearers brought the co/pse
to the edge of the large washing-tank
I
which occupies the centre of the court. J
The worshippers thronged round it, a short
service was held, and the body was carried
off by the left-hand porch. My Moham-
medan friend told me that it would be
buried without any further ceremony.
The treatment of the Mohammedan dead
appeared to me 'even more simple than
that of the Hindoos. There was no out-
ward sign of mourning or lamentation,
" nothing was here for tears, nothing to
wail," at the same time there was nothing
jto show indifference to the loss, no doubt
fis to a future state. I was fortunate to
have, seen the great mosque under such
favourable circumstances. As my companion
and myself, believer and unbeliever, walked {
DELHI 173
i
side by side, no disrespect was offered
to hie. We looked with sympathy at the
prostrate worshippers, and at the holy
saint who had consecrated his life to jf
prayer and fasting, and who was sur-
rounded by a crowd of devotees. My
friend assured me that he was a convinced 7
Mohammedan, and that the only difference x
between us was that he placed Mahomet }
by the side of Christ. He did not anticipate
any great conversion of the Mussulmans-'
to Christianity, but he hoped that the/
votaries of the two religions might Some*>
4
day come to understand each other.
Old Delhi
175
H
XVI
OLD DELHI
E who would visit ancient Delhi must \
drive out eleven miles from the
\
present city, when- he will find himself at
the fort of Lalkot, the date of which is }
>
nearly coeval with the Norman Conquest. \
Although the name of Delhi is now in-
dissolubly connected with the Mogul
Emperors, a large Hindu city existed under,
that appellation, which ceased to be a royal ^
residence less than a hundred years aftei?
V
the birth of Christ In the middle of the
eighth century it was rebuilt by the Raj puts, -
177 12
178 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
and it was not finally conquered by the
Mussulmans until the last years of { the
twelfth century.
The Mohammedan invaders naturally
wished to commemorate their triumphs by/'
the erection of a mosque, and for this\
purpose they used already existing Hindu
pillars, having obliterated any features which
were offensive to them. The mosque, if
finished, would have been of enormous size,
but the feature df it which chiefly attracts
the traveller is the Kutab Minar, the lofty
, minaret which forms so conspicuous an
object from the walls of Delhi, and which
is at once fastened upon as a goal of
pilgrimage. It dates from the first thirty
years of the thirteenth century, and is,
t
therefore, coeval with the double church
at Assisi, which is supposed to be the ;
earliest Gothic building erected in Italy,
OLD DELHI 179
and is nearly contemporary with the
Catnedral of Siena.
It is, probably, the most impressive
minaret in the world ; it rises like the flower .i
of a mighty aloe-tree to the height of 240 ,'
feet, becoming more slender as it ascends. ;
It is fluted and divided into five stories,,'
each of which has its own balcony. The
view from the top extends to the walls.
I
of Delhi and over the plain, which is strewed^
with the ruins of the successive cities whiclf
have been built upori the site.
Close by this wonderful minaret stands t
another curious memorial of a very peculiar
character. It is a simple iron pillar. In ^
London it would be the remains of a I
dilapidated lamp-post, in Cambridge one ^
of the ventilating shafts of our new system
of drainage ; at Lalkot it is an object of!
worship. That this iron pillar should have
i8o IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
been set up in the midst of so much mag-
nificence as if it were of gold or of s*ome
precious marble has an indescribable effect
upon the imagination. It is only twenty-
two feet high, and was made after the
fashion of the early guns, by welding to-
gether successive cylinders of metal. Its
surface is smooth and uniform, in fact its
dignity resides in its general insignificance.
A Sanskrit inscription, cut upon one of its
sides, is held to" assign it to the epoch ol J
Constantine the Great, but by whom it was
i
r erected or why no one knows, except that
we may conclude that it was a personal
memorial. "Ladies generally despise it, but,
take it all in all, it is one of the most in-
teresting monuments which I saw in India.
i
I c must confess that the other remains
of Ancient Delhi have left on my mind (
rather a vague impression. I have a
OLD DELHI 181
i
confused recollection of lofty walls ; of
ruined mosques ; of tombs of holy men
and kings, covered with flowers or with
precious tapestries, to be approached with
reverence by the pious ; of tanks of green
water into which men and boys plunged
or were ready to plunge for annas ; of a
comfortable dak bungalow, and of Sir
Thomas Metcalfe's billiard-room. Some few
images stand up prominently in the waste
of ideas, as the monuments which I am
describing rose from the waste of ideals.
One of these is the village of Nizam-u3-din,
which contains several important monuments.
There is the " hall of sixty-four pillars,"
supporting twenty-five domes, and the tomb
of Akbar's foster-brother. There is the
t
tomb of the great Shah Nizam-ud-din
himself, who was a contemporary of the poet
Dante. It is not devoid of magnificence,
182 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
and is an object of great devotion. The
X guide-book asserts, on the authority* of
\ General Sleeman, that Nizam-ud-din was the
'founder of Thuggism. Sleeman formed his
opinion from the fact that the Thugs wor-
shipped at his tomb with especial reverence.
I was earnestly requested by the attendant
priests to give* the most uncompromising
denial to this monstrous calumny. The
Thugs, they tell me, are very pious people,
i
who worship all who deserve worship. They
fdo not pray at the tomb of Nizam-ud-din
more 1 than they pray at the tomb of any
r
other recognised saint, and if Nizam-ud-din
were aware of their practices, he would
regard them with unmitigated horror.
More interesting to me, I confess, was
the tomb of the poet Khusru, whose verses
I have never read, and shall never read.
He lived at the court of Toghlak Shah,
OLD DELHI 183
i
like Dante at the court of Can Grande, and, 4
as Sleeman says, " moved about where he
pleased through the palace of the emperor,
and sang extempore songs to his lyre,
while the greatest and fairest watched his
lips to catch the expressions as they came
warm from his soul." Orientals certainly
have their own way of "recognising and
rewarding literary genius.
More conspicuous is the tomb of Humayun,
about a mile from the fort of Delhi. It ~
was built by Akbar to the memory of
his father, and is said to have occupiefl the
j
labour of two hundred masons for sixteen
years. It contains eighteen tombs, six of
which commemorate Mogul Emperors, and
the rest of them their generals and
counsellors. The tomb of Humayun is a
forerunner of the Taj, not in the matchless
beauty of its material or its ornament, for
184 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
it is chiefly of red stone, and is plain in
design. But its most haunting memory is
that it was the last refuge of the miserable
princes of the Royal House of Delhi, who
were dragged from it to be killed. In a
little recess off the great hall were huddled
these cowering imbeciles, guilty of little
but their rank, 'surrounded by a throng of
faithful but cowed retainers, betrayed by;
one of their own blood. Hodson and
Macdowell broke through the marble screen
to seize them. Their lives were promised
them, but the promise could not be kept.]
As we drive back to Delhi, we pass the
.citadel and fort of Indraput, the capital
t of Sher Shah and Humayun, once, we
i are told, twice as large as Shahjahanabad,
the modern Delhi. Here also is the scene
\
of Humayun's death. Rising too suddenly
at the call of prayer, he fell down a flight
OLD DELHI 185
of steep stairs, and lay stunned at the :
I
bottom. He walked to his palace, but died i
I
of internal injuries.
Delhi is the Rome of India, but whilst"" 1 "\
t
India is English it can never be its capitat.*
Calcutta has that position, and must main-
tain it. The capital of our commercial '
Empire must be situated, like London, on j
a great river, with easy access to the sea.. 1
But Delhi, like Rome, will always exercise
a strong influence over 1 the minds of all
the races which inhabit the peninsula. It
was the place where Queen Victoria was
>
proclaimed Empress, it is the place where
her son was proclaimed Emperor ; and
from its central position, and the memories*
by which it is consecrated, it will always 5
j
remain the place of assembly for the tribes
of India, when they go up united for any
great civil or religious purpose.
Baroda
XVII
BARODA
OOME years ago, when I was staying
at the Maloia, in the Engadine, the
Gaekwar of Baroda, who had just arrived,
sent to ask if I would receive him in my
room. I was somewhat agitated at the
idea of entertaining a reigning prirlce in
>
an hotel bedroom, but I made the best
arrangements that I could, and we talked
over many thing% for a long time. Our
conversation was principally concerned with
the education of Indians at English
universities. Before we parted I promised
His Highness that, if ever I visited India,
189
igo IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
I would pay him a visit, and as Baroda
lay on the road between Pelhi and Bombay,
it was easy for me to fulfil my engagement.
No one has seen India properly who has
not visited a Native State ; it is better
indeed, if he can, to visit several of them.
They retain much of the ancient appearance,
and many of trie old customs which have
perished under the British Raj. If well
'.
administered they are interesting, if badly
administered they are picturesque. They
form a very important part of our system
of government. Their existence is an-
earnest that we hold India as the trustees j
of the Indian people. They are useful, also,
as a comparison with our own methods of
administration. So long as the Rajahs are
loyal, they are a great support to the
throne. Their wealth forms a reservoir ;
which, like that of the City companies, -
BARODA 191
i
can be tapped for extraordinary purposes.
No ^Viceroy would now meddle with the j
independence of the Native States. It is j
;
generally admitted that the annexation of
Oude, and the fear lest it might be followed
by similar acts, were among the principal
causes of the Mutiny.' To educate native I
princes, to make them English without |
ceasing to be Indian, to inspire them with
the desire and the capacity for good govern- j
ment without severing them from their
subjects, and making them merely the
vassals of the court and the companions;
of English nobility, is a difficult problem.
It is one, however, which the present Viceroy
has set himself to 'solve, and in proportion
as he succeeds so will the fortunes of the
Native States be prosperous.
j
The Gaekwar of Baroda is a very re-
markable man. He is enlightened and
192 IMPRESSIONS OF INDIAN TRAVEL
hard-working, his whole heart is given to
the improvement of his people. It^ has
been objected that he spends too much
of his money on palaces, and of his time
v 'in Europe. But neither of these charges
was supported by what I saw in my visit.
f It is true that he has constructed, at the
X cost, perhaps, of half a million, a large palace
"outside the town. But his ancestors lived
in a wooden house in the midst of the
city, a place qvite oiit of harmony with
modern conditions. The palace at Baroda
is hot too large for the requirements of
1 a court in which the women live in purdah,
;nor is it better furnished than many English
.country houses. It did not cost nearly
as much as Eaton Hall, which the Duke
of Westminster built for ' the delectation
.
of travelling Americans.