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CHAPTER VII
THE GREAT PLAINS OF THE GANGES
Beyond the Terai the traveller, turning his back upon the Himalayas, enters a vast plain, hundreds of miles wide and a thousand miles long. From Calcutta in the east to beyond Delhi in the north-west, from the Himalayas in the north to the Vindhya Hills in the south spreads this vast sweep of land, the Plain of Hindostan. Into this plain flow a thousand streams, great and small, from the mountains which fringe its borders. Every stream, sooner or later, is gathered into the broad bosom of the Ganges, which winds its majestic current through the centre of the immense level. The Ganges is more than the great river of India: it is one of the great rivers of the world. To vast numbers of mankind it is a sacred stream, and to bathe in its holy waters is a privilege for which pilgrims will travel on foot from distant lands. But the mighty flood is put to other uses than that of worship. A network of canals gathers up the waters of itself and of its many tributaries, and spreads them abroad upon the fields of the husbandman, and makes the plain blossom into fertility.
To travel this plain reminds one of being at sea. On all hands it stretches away absolutely flat, and fades away into a misty horizon, save that at morning and evening the great snowy heights of the Himalayas shine out, and fade away again in the light of the rising and setting sun.
This great sunny plain swarms with life. It is covered with the villages of the Indian peasants; it is coloured with the bright patches of their crops, with green fields of paddy (rice), with golden wheat and barley, with poppies white in flower, with yellow mustard, with lentils, potatoes, castor-oil plants, and a score of other crops. These grow freely where water is. Where water is not, the land stretches bare and sterile, sand, stones, and rocks bleaching in the sun.
Here and there a group of trees proclaims a village. The palm and the feathery bamboo mingle their foliage; the huge banyan-tree stretches itself over the soil and sends down its long shoots, which strike it into the soil and form supports to the parent branches. Around the village pastures the herd of buffaloes, often watched by a small boy, and a clumsy cart, with wheels formed of two circles of solid wood, and drawn by two mild-eyed, hump-backed oxen, creaks by as it journeys towards a neighbouring place.
The life of the villages in this plain is, as a rule, untouched by modern ideas. They move upon the world-old ways which their fathers followed. In many of them, far from the main river and the railway, a white face is scarcely ever seen. There are great towns in the Ganges basin, but these are only specks on the face of the mighty plain. The Indian ryot knows nothing of them and goes on in his own way.
Water is his first need, and lucky is the man who has a good well or whose field is upon the bank of a river. The water is drawn in many ways. One peasant employs the simple method of watering by hand, filling his pots and emptying them upon the roots of the thirsty plants; but if the crop be rice, which demands a flood of water, a pair of oxen are set to the work. They are harnessed to a rope which runs over a pulley and has a huge water-skin fastened to its farther end. As the oxen go away from the well they pull up the skin full of water till it reaches a prepared channel. Here a man is waiting, who empties the skin into the channel, and the water runs away to the field. Now the oxen come back, and the skin sinks to the water; then they turn again, and the skin rises. One man drives the team, the other empties the water, and so the work goes on from dawn to dark.
These are the people who produce the wealth of India, these quiet, patient toilers growing their endless crops of wheat, of rice, of barley, of poppies for opium, of cotton, and of maize. They cut their ditches for irrigation, and flood a once-barren stretch of country with water. Thenceforth they take from it always two, and often three, crops in a year.
CHAPTER VIII
THE LAND OF THE MOGUL KINGS
Far in the north-west of the great plain of Hindostan, the ancient and famous city of Delhi stands on the broad Jumna, the chief tributary of the Ganges, and around her lies the land of the Mogul Kings. Delhi has a great name in the history of India. She saw the empire of the powerful Mogul Kings; she saw some of the most desperate fighting of the Great Indian Mutiny of 1857, when the last Mogul was driven from his throne. But long before the Mutiny the power of the Moguls had vanished. Their palmy days were in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the strongest of them all, Akbar, the Great Mogul, began to reign in 1556. He came to the throne two years before Elizabeth became Queen of England; he died two years after her, in 1605.
Akbar the Great was only fourteen years old when he became King, but "from that moment his grip was on all India." He proved a wonderful ruler and leader of men. India was a welter of conflicting races, tongues, and creeds. Under his firm and wise government strife died away, peace and order took its place, and those who had been the fiercest enemies lived side by side in friendship. He was at once law-maker, soldier, ruler, and philosopher. He was tall, and as strong in body as in mind, for he was the best polo player in India, and it is recorded of him that he once rode 800 miles on camel-back, and then, without staying for rest, at once gave battle to his enemy.
To find the wonderful buildings which the Great Mogul left behind him, we must leave Delhi and go down the Jumna to Agra and its neighbourhood. Agra is still called by the natives Akbarabad, the city of Akbar, and here stands the mighty fort which the monarch built, a city in itself. In a land of magnificent buildings there is nothing grander than the fort at Agra. Its battlements of red sandstone tower 70 feet from the ground, the walls run a mile and a half in circuit, and the immense mass of masonry dwarfs the modern town. Within the fort is a maze of courts, pavilions, corridors, and chambers, wrought in dazzling white marble, and decorated with the most beautiful carving and exquisite tracery in stone. The chief features of the vast building are Akbar's palace, with its golden pinnacles glittering in the sunshine, and the Moti Masjid, a small mosque of most beautiful proportions, so perfect both in design and in the beauty of its ornaments that it is called the Pearl Mosque, being the pearl of all mosques.
From Agra a drive of twenty-two miles takes us to Fattehpore-Sikri, a marvellous town, erected by Akbar himself, "where every building is a palace, every palace a dream carved in red sandstone." The name of the place means "The City of Victory," and was given to it because Akbar's grandfather defeated the Rajputs at this place in 1527. Here Akbar built a splendid mosque, which stands on the west side of a great courtyard. From the south the courtyard is entered by the Sublime Gate, or Gate of Victory, "the noblest portal in India." Akbar's palace may still be seen, and the chief place of interest is the Throne Room, where, in the centre of a large chamber, rises a huge column of red sandstone, with a spreading capital surrounded by a balustrade. Akbar's seat was placed on the top of this mighty pillar, and from it ran four raised pathways, leading to the places where his ministers sat, in four galleries, one at each corner of the room.
The tomb of Akbar is at Sikandra, about six miles from Agra. It stands in the midst of a garden, which is entered by four lofty gateways of red sandstone. From each gateway a broad causeway of stone runs to the centre of the enclosure, where rises the great building which contains the tomb of the Great Mogul. The building rises in terraces something in the form of a pyramid, the lower stories of red sandstone, the top story of white marble, the latter decorated with pierced panels of marble wrought in the most beautiful patterns. The floor of the building is open to the day, and in the centre stands the grandly simple tomb, a huge block of white marble, on which is inscribed a single word, 'Akbar.' Near at hand is a small pillar in which the famous diamond the Koh-i-noor was once set.
Splendid as were the buildings of Akbar, yet his grandson, Shah Jehan, was destined to surpass him; for Shah Jehan built the Taj Mahal, the most glorious tomb that grief ever raised in memory of love, and one of the wonders of the world. In 1629 Shah Jehan lost his wife, and he determined to raise to her memory a monument which should keep her name immortal. He employed 20,000 men for eighteen years, and the splendid building was completed in 1648, the date being inscribed upon the great gate. The most famous artists and workmen of India were gathered to this task, and the result is a palace of the most wonderful beauty and magnificence.
The Taj Mahal stands in a great garden about a mile from Agra, and is surrounded by trees and flowers and fountains: "the song of birds meets the ear, and the odour of roses and lemon-flowers sweetens the air." It is built of the purest white marble, and shines with such dazzling brilliance that to look full upon it in strong sunshine is scarcely possible. Seen by moonlight, it is a radiant vision of beauty, and the charm of its lovely form is felt to the full. The great domes seem to swim above in the silver light, the stately minarets shoot up towards the dark blue of the sky, and the scene is one of unearthly beauty.
Glorious as is this mighty building in the mass, it is just as full of beauty when examined closely and in detail. Every part is covered with the most graceful and exquisite designs, inlaid in marbles of different colours. Every wall, every arch, every portal, is ornamented and finished as if the craftsmen had been engaged upon a small precious casket instead of a corner of an immense palace tomb. One striking feature is seen in the arches of the doorways and windows. Around them run inlaid letters most beautifully shaped in black marble. These letters form verses and chapters of the Koran, the sacred book of the Moslems, and it is said that the whole of the Koran is thus inlaid in the Taj.
The heart of the building is the vault where Shah Jehan and his wife sleep together, for he was laid beside her. The tombs are formed of the purest white marble, inlaid most beautifully with designs formed of agate, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, jasper, and other precious stones, and they are surrounded by a pierced marble screen whose open tracery-work is formed of flowers carved and wrought into a thousand designs.
CHAPTER IX
THE LAND OF THE MOGUL KINGS (continued)
It was Shah Jehan who returned to Delhi as the seat of government of the Mogul Kings, and largely rebuilt the city. But the memories of Delhi reach far, far back before the time of the Mogul Kings; they stretch away into the dim dawn of Indian history, where the threads of truth and fable are so intermingled that the historian cannot disentangle them.
The modern Delhi stands in the midst of a plain covered with ruins – the ruins of many cities built by many Kings before the present Delhi came into being. It is a striking sight to drive from the city to the great Tower of Kutb Minar, eleven miles away to the south. The road runs through the traces of the Delhis that have been: heaps of scattered brick, a mound that was once a gateway, a broken wall that was once the corner of a fort, a tumbling tower, and a ruined dome. Through these tokens of shattered palaces and tombs of dead and forgotten Kings you pass on till the vast shaft of the Kutb rises from the plain like a lighthouse from the sea.
It is an immense tower of five stories, rising 240 feet into the air. At the base it measures about 50 feet through, but the sides taper till it is only 9 feet wide at the top. The three lower stories are of red sandstone; the two upper are faced with white marble, and the whole forms a very striking and wonderful monument.
This colossal tower preserves the name of Kutb, one of the "slave" Sultans of Delhi. Seven hundred years ago Kutb, who had been a slave, rose by his military talents, first to the position of a General, and then made himself Emperor of Delhi. He was the first of ten Moslem rulers who reigned from 1206 to 1290, and it is believed that the Kutb Minar was raised as a tower of victory. It is possible to ascend the lofty shaft by a flight of 378 steps, which winds up the interior, but "the view from the top is nothing. The country is an infinite green and brown chess-board of young corn and fallow, dead flat on every side, ugly with the complacent plainness of all rich country. Beyond the sheeny ribbon of the Jumna, north, south, east, and west, you can see only land, and land, and land – a million acres with nothing on them to see except the wealth of India and the secret of the greatness of India."
But near at hand is a far more ancient monument than that of the slave King. This is the famous Iron Pillar, the "arm or weapon of victory." It is a pillar of pure malleable iron, and its erection is ascribed to the fourth century before Christ, when it was raised to commemorate a great Hindu victory. At present it projects some 23 feet from the earth, and it is about a foot in diameter at the capital, but a great part of it is buried.
In Delhi itself stand the great fort and the great mosque, the Jama Masjid, both built by Shah Jehan. The fort was at once the stronghold and the palace of the Mogul Emperors who followed Shah Jehan. It is surrounded by a towering wall built of gigantic slabs of sandstone, crested with battlements and moated below. The usual entrance to the fort is through the noble Lahore Gate, and the palace stands before you.
You enter the hall of audience, a great hall of red sandstone open on three sides. There is an alcove in the centre of the wall at the back, and from the alcove projects a great slab of marble. From the four corners of this marble platform spring four richly-inlaid marble pillars supporting an arched canopy. The marble is beautiful, but the work upon it is ten times more beautiful. The wall of the alcove is gorgeous with tiny pictures of flowers and fruits and birds, wrought most cunningly in paint and precious stones. In this alcove was sometimes set the Peacock Throne, whose glories are still celebrated in story and song, the marvellous throne which Shah Jehan had built for himself, the throne which blazed with gems set by the most skilful jewellers of Delhi, men famous throughout India for their craftsmanship.
Next comes the hall of private audience, where the King sat among his Court. This, too, is open, a noble pavilion on columns, where the breezes could blow if any such were moving in the burning heats of summer. "The whole is of white marble, asheen in the sun; but that is the least part of the wonder. Walls and ceilings, pillars, and many-pointed arches, are all inlaid with richest, yet most delicate, colour. Gold cornices and scrolls and lattices frame traceries of mauve and pale green and soft azure. What must it have been, you ask yourself, when the Peacock Throne blazed with emerald and sapphire, diamond and ruby, from the now empty pedestal, and the plates of burnished silver reflected its glory from the roof?"
Peacock Throne and plates of silver have long been gone. Nadir Shah carried them off in 1739, when he entered the city with his victorious troops, put the inhabitants to the sword, and sacked the place. Many an attack has been made on the fort, but none, in English eyes, has so deep an interest as the assault of 1857, and all English travellers visit the Cashmere Gate.
The Siege of Delhi by our troops is one of the great incidents of the Indian Mutiny, and the historic ridge to the north-west is the site of the British camp. After a patient siege the fort was attacked, the Cashmere Gate was blown open by a storming-party, and the British poured in, victorious at last. Upon the gate is an inscription telling of the deeds of the noble forlorn hope who led the way and opened a path for their comrades to rush in. Other monuments speak of the heroic telegraph operators who "saved India" by sending far and wide news of the Mutiny, and stuck to their posts though it cost their lives; and of the gallant party under Lieutenant Willoughby who blew up the powder-magazine in which they were posted rather than let its precious contents fall into the hands of the rebels.
Beyond the fort stands the Jama Masjid, the vast mosque, said to be the largest in the world. It is a great building of red sandstone and marble, "upstanding from a platform reached on three sides by flights of steps so tall, so majestically wide, that they are like a stone mountain." At the head of each flight is a splendid gateway, and that which faces eastward is opened for none save the Viceroy, who rules India, and the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab. At the mosque are preserved some Moslem relics, which the guardian priest will show for a fee – a slipper of Mohammed, a hair of the Prophet, his footprints in stone, and a piece of the green canopy which was once over his tomb.
Now we will go into the city proper. Here is indeed a change! Mill chimneys pour into the blue sky their long trails of black smoke. Marble halls and mighty Kings seem very far off as you traverse a cotton-spinning quarter where Delhi measures itself against Manchester. The narrow streets are dirty and squalid, and filled with a crowd whose dingy robes and shabby turbans bespeak the modern artisan of industrial India. Many strange things has this ancient city seen, but nothing stranger than this last turn of her fortunes, when she bends to her clacking loom, and boasts that with her own cotton she can spin as fine as any mill in Lancashire.
