IMPERIAL DELHI.*
MR. FANsas.wE's new guide to Delhi appears fells oppor- tunitate at the moment when all eyes are turned towards the pageant which is being held under the walls of the famous city of Shah Jahan. Perhaps the class of people who are
attending the Durbar is hardly one that sets much store by "tales of ancientry," but it would be difficult for the least imaginative spectator of the historic Rajas, surrounded by their retinue and blazing in all the pomp and pride of their ancestral state, not to cast the mind back to the days of the Great Moghul, as Somerville saw them in his almost forgotten Chace.
"Imperial Delhi opening wide her Gates Pours out her thronging Legions, bright in Arms, And all the Pomp of War. Before them sound Clarions and trumpets, breathing Martial Airs And bold Defiance. High upon his Throne, Borne on the Back of his proud Elephant, Sits the great Chief of Tamur's glorious Race: Sublime he sits, amid the radiant Blaze Of Gems and Gold. Omrahs about him crowd, And rein th' Arabian steed, and watch his Nod : And potent Rajahs, who themselves preside O'er Realms of wide Extent ; but here submiss Their Homage pay, alternate Kings and Slaves."
To realise the splendour of the Court when the Delhi of Shah Jahan was still the newest of the capitals of India, one has but to read the animated pages of Bernier, the French physician who lived there in the closing years of that Emperor's life and in the beginning of the reign of his more famous supplanter, Aurangzib. In those days there was a great square at the head of the "Silver Street "—the Chandni Chauk—in front of the Lahore gate of the " Ruby Fortress," as Shah Jahan's palace-citadel was called ; and here was the scene of the gathering of the " Omrahs," or nobles of the realm. " Nothing," says Bernier, " can be conceived much more brilliant than the great square in front of the fortress at the hours when the Omrahs, Rajas, and Mansabdars [or feudatories] repair to the citadel to mount guard or attend the assembly of the Am Khas [or Hall of Audience]. Omrahs and Rajas ride thither, some on horseback, some on majestic elephants ; but the greater part are conveyed on the shoulders of six men, in rich palankins, leaning against a thick cushion of brocade, and chewing their betel, for the double purpose of sweetening their breath and reddening their lips." The magnificence of the Courts within when the Moghul held his daily levees baffled description, and it was scarcely in an exaggerative spirit that the artist painted above the arches of the inner hall the famous words with their emphatic reitera- tions, "If there be a Paradise upon the face of the earth, it is this, it is this, it is this !"
Much of the stately palace of Shah Jahan still remains, and the photographs of this well-illustrated volume do as much justice to the noble architecture and elaborate decoration as
photographs can render. But much has gone, and it is lamentable to note that not a little of the needless removal and destruction of historic buildings has been the doing of the
British Government since the Mutiny. Every one should support Mr. Fanshawe's timely suggestion that the great Durbar should be made an epoch in the preservation of the city, and that careful restoration of such parts as may still be recovered from destruction should be one of the fruits of the Imperial assembly. Not the least valuable part of a scholarly and thoroughly informed work is the frankness with which acts of vandalism are exposed and the necessary measures of preservation indicated. It is certainly amazing that " the beautiful little red sandstone building at the back of the Moti Masjid of the Agra fort" should be used as a canteen, and the Music Gallery and Mumtaz Maliall turned into military quarters. Agra and Delhi are full of treasures of archi- tecture and design, and wanton spoliation should not be
encouraged, to say the least of it, by the British authorities. To do them justice, things have much improved of late years, and we hope these suggestions will be brought to effect by a Viceroy who has always shown a fine appreciation of the traditions of history and art.
The city of Shah Jahan—Shahjahanabad—is modern Delhi,
• Delhi Past and Present. By B. C. Fanshawe, C.S.I., Bengal Civil Service, retired, late Chief Secretary to the Punjab Government, and Commissioner of the Delhi Division. • With Maps and Illustrations. London : J. Murray. [153. net.1 but it is not by any means the whole of the Delhi of the Middle Ages. Indeed, it was built in the middle of the seventeenth century, and is only mediaeval inasmuch as the Middle Ages lasted longer in India than in Europe. The original Delhi, the fortress of " Rai Pithora," as Prithvi Raja is popularly called, where the Turkish successors of Mahmud the Idol- breaker set up the lofty Kutb Millar, lies nine miles south of Shahjahanabad, and between the two are the vestiges of four intermediate foundations, whilst the fortress-city of Tugh- lakabad stands five miles east of Old Delhi. Between the early capital of Rai Pithora and the Slave Kings, Ala-ad-din the Khalji built his strong city of Siri to guard against repeated Mongol invasions. Joining Siri to Old Delhi, the most talented and most eccentric of Indian Emperors, Muhammad Tughlak, in the fourteenth century laid out his royal resi- dence of Jahanpanah, "The World's Refuge,"—not content with which he must needs try to transplant the whole popu- lation of Delhi to a new capital at Daulatabad, in the Deccan, leaving the northern metropolis a silent desert, as the Moorish visitor Ibn-Batuta tells us. A little later came Firozabad, close to modern Delhi ; and later still the city of Humayun and his great rival, Sher Shah, built on the site of Indrapat, one of the six villages celebrated in the Ramayana; and latest of all the Great Moghul of Bernier's time established the Ruby Fortress and Shahjahanabad. When Mr. Fanshawe says that Delhi was an Imperial city during but a brief period of a century and a half, he must refer only to Shah- jahanabad; for if Old Delhi was not the capital of an Empire equal in extent to that of Shah Jahan, the sway of Ala-ad-din, of Muhammad Tughlak, and of Firoz was as Imperial even as that of Akbar. Mr. Fanshawe naturally dwells most upon the modern city, but it is a little confusing to the reader to have to study the history backwards. One might almost advise the student to begin the book, in the Oriental manner, at the latter end, where the elder Delhis will be found described, together with a far too brief and jejune sketch of the history of their rulers, and an abstract of Fergusson's classification of their art. The third chapter, occupying half the volume, is entirely taken up with the siege and assault of 1857; and although it is well that this splendid achievement, which is too little remembered, should be brought prominently before every visitor to the scene of so much heroic effort, the account here is out of all proportion to the intrinsic im- portance, and is included at the expense of much interesting matter relating to earlier times. Bare references to such names as Queen Raziya and Ghaziu-d-din, to take opposite extremes of the history, convey no idea of their strange adven- tures, and the greatest defect of this useful boot is its neglect to illuminate the dry details of topography by the associations of the sites described. Its method, as we have said, is con- fusing, and the volume proves once more how rarely it is that an authority who knows a place by heart, as Mr. Fanshawe knows Delhi, is able to give a clear idea of it to those who have not seen it. Nevertheless, we are honestly grateful for a work which is undoubtedly the best de- scription of Delhi, from a topographical and popular archaeological point of view, that has yet appeared ; and the numerous plans and photographs add greatly to its value. We wish, in the interest of those who are not Persian scholars or Urdu speakers, the author would translate such frequently occurring terms as " Kotila," " Kila," " chauk," "band," "Lat," " Rang Mahal " (properly "Mahan"), and that when he quotes "an historian of the time" he -would mention his name, and give his reference. We do not think "the culminating period of the decay" (p. 54) is a happy phrase, and are at a loss to understand what "the British Government" had to do with Delhi in 1804. Timur, by the way, was not a " Moghal invader," but a Barlas Turk. Finch, it is observed, " alone of all early travellers in India visited both Agra and Lahore " Mr. Fanshawe has forgotten the Augustinian Manrique. On p. 2 the date "1550 " is doubtless a slip for 1650, and " Alagmir IL" and " Barah Syuds " on p. 305 are misprints ; but the dates 1365-1390 (p. 59) do not represent the limits of Firoz Shah's reign, and " FarclAs," " Shahab," " Kutab," and " Mubarik " frequently occur when. " Firdaus," " Shibab," "Kutb," and " Mubarak " should be written. The index is altogether inadequate, which is specially to be regretted in a guide-book. We make no doubt, however, that the work has already proved useful to the multitude of visitors who are now seeing Delhi for the
first time; and with a little addition, revision, and rearrange- zuent it could be made into a really interesting' as well as accurate guide.
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