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234 | .
Tales of the Brahmins. .
Our ‘traveller, in the course of his desultory
wanderings, visited the city of Delhi, still the seat
of a phantom imperial authority, but looking as if
it had fallen nevertorise again. Its ruins, however,
attest its former grandeur, for they extend over a
surface as large as the whole of the British metro-
polis, and amply sustain the assertion, that when
Delhi was the capital of Mahommedan India, under
the Affghan or Patan. dynasties, its inhabitants
numbered upwards of two millions, At present
they, are probably not a tenth of that number,
although Delhi is considered the most important
British station in north-western India.
The inhabited part of Delhi is about seven miles
in circuit, seated on a rocky range of hills, and
surrounded with an embattled wall, strengthened
with bastions, a moat, and a regular glacis. The
houses within are many of them large and high.
There are a great number of mosques, with high
. minarets and gilded domes, and above all, are seen
the palace, a very high and. extensive cluster of
Gothic towers and battlements, and the Jumma
Musjeed, the largest and handsomest place of
Mussulman worship in India. The chief material
of all these fine buildings is red granite, of a very
agreeable though solemn color, inlaid, in some of
the ornamental parts, with white marble ; and the
general style of building is of a simple and im-
pressive character. It far exceeds ‘anything at
Moscow. The Jumna, like the other great rivers of
this country, overflows, during the rains, a wide
extent; but, unlike the Ganges, does not confer
fertility. In this part of its course, it is so strongly
impregnated with natron—extensive beds of which
abound in all the neighborhood—that its waters
destroy, instead of promoting vegetation ; and the
whole space between the high banks and the river is
a loose and perfectly barren sand, like that of the
sea-shore., .
Bishop Heber says, in his lively volumes, that :
“From the gate of Agra to Humaioon’s tomb, is
a very awful scene of desolation; ruins after ruins,
tombs after tombs, fragments of brickwork, freestone,
granite, and marble, scattered everywhere over a
soil naturally rocky and barren, without cultivation,
except in one or two small spots, and without a
singletree. I was reminded of Caffa, in the Crimea;
but this was Caffa on the scale of Paris, with the
wretched fragments of a magnificence such as
Paris itself cannot boast. The ruins really extend-
ed as far as the eye could reach, and our track wound
among them all the way. This was the seat of old
Delhi, as founded by the Patan kings, on the ruins
of the still larger Hindoo city of Indraput, which
Jay chiefly ina western direction. When the pre-
sent city, which is certainly in a more advantageous
situation, was founded by the emperor Shah Jehan,
he removed many of its inhabitants thither; most
of the rest followed, to be near the palace and the
principal markets; and as, during the Mahratta
government, there was no sleeping in a safe skin
without ‘the walls, old Delhi was soon entirely
abandoned. The official name of the present city is
Shah Jehan-poor (city of the king of the world);
but the name of Delhi is always used in conversa-
tion, and in every writing but those which are
immediately offered to the emperor's eye.
~ In our way, one mass of ruins larger than the
rest, was pointed out to us as the old Patan palace.
Jt has been a large and solid fortress, in a plain
and unornamented style of architecture, and would
have been picturesque, had it been in a count:
where trees grow and ivy is green—but is here only
ugly and melancholy. It is chiefly remarkable for a
high, black pillar of cast metal, called Feroze’s
walking-stick. This was originally a Hindoo work ;
the emb!em, I apprehend, of Siva, which stood, in a
temple in the same spot, and concerning which there
_ was a tradition, like that attached to the coronation
stone of the Scots, that while it stuod, the children
of Brahma were to rule in Indraput. On the con-
quest of the country by the Mussulinen. the vanity
of the prediction was shown; and Ferose inclosed
it within the court of his palace, as a trophy of the
victory of Islam over idolatry. It is covered with
inscriptions, mostly Persian’ and Arabic ; but that
which is evidently the original, and probably con-
tains the prophecy, is in a character now obsolete
and unknown, though apparently akin to the
Nagree.” ,
Jt has been remarked that the Patans built like
giants, and finished their work like jewellers ; yet
the ornaients, flurid as they are, in their proper
places are never thrown away, or allowed to inter-
tere with the severe and solemn character of their
edifices. The breadth and excellence of their style
tecture which they had constantly before them, and
which they scarcely ever failed to imitate, adapt, and
improve upon. The picturesque mass of ruins
shown in our very fine pictorial embellishment,
exhibits something of the severity and simplicity of
the manners of the early Mahommedan invaders of
India; but we believe it has not yet been deter-
mined to what period the buildings belong. The
probability is, that they owe their erection to Ferose
Shah—the monarch whom Heber alluded to—who
flourished about the middle of the fourteenth cen-
tury, and is said to have built forty mosques,
twenty caravanserais, five hospitals, a hundre
palaces, ten baths, a hundred tombs, and a hundred
bridges. But all his building could not save his
throne from the invasions of the Moguls, under
Timour and Baber, and the ultimate ruin of the
whole of his posterity, under Akbar, the celebrated
grandson of the latter. Nor could the building
mania, which subsequently seized upon the Mogul
emperors, prevent the like catastrophe befalling
them at the hands of the rebellious vassals, brigand
Mahrattas, and hard-fighting and_ incorrigibly-
intriguing British, The Mahommedan empire in
India, both in fact and sentiment, is utterly ruined
and destroyed, and all that remains of its several
brilliant phases, are magnificent ruins like those
shown in our illustration, scattered over the face of
the country. .
Some such conviction as this must have seized
upon the mind of our traveller; for, after gazing
upon those remains of a once splendid Patan palace,
he remarked to the Brahmin who acted as his guide,
that he thought not only the political power, but the
very monuments of the Mahommedan rulers of
India, were rapidly hastening to oblivion.
**It is so decreed,” remarked the Brahmin “ em-
pires founded by the sword, melt away just as
snow-flakes on the hills of Cashmere melt in the
beams of the noon-day sun. The dust of battle has
scarcely cleared away, ere the victorious rider and
horse fall prostrate on the plain. Nothing is eternal
but Brahina.”
“If I mistake not, my friend,” said the traveller,
drily, “the swords of Bala Rama and Krishnu had
a good deal to do with overturning Buddhism, and
seating Brahma on his throne.”
“ The Prophet Brothers,” replied the Brahmin,
‘founded kingdoms and bequeathed them to their
posterity ; but the kingdom of Brahma they could
not found, for it was before them, after them, and
is eternal. Still I am free to admit that the earthly
monarchies of Rama and Krishnu have disappeared ;
at they endured for more than two thousand years,
and their monuments still survive. Moslem rage in
vain has attempted to extirpate them. Behold their
power, and its evidence. The Great Mogul is a
phantom in the hands of your mighty company,
and thesé buildings, founded by his race, which in
this part of India do not take back beyond two
centuries, are already crumbling to dust.”
**So I perceive,” said the traveller. | ‘* Delhi, al-
though, in its architecture, comaratively a modern
city, is nothing better than a pile of ruins. Yet
some of the Mussulmen monarchs were great men.
It would be difficult to find, in the long roll of
European kings, one that excelled Baber, the most
eminent and accomplished prince that ever adorned
an Asiatic throne. Akbar was also a great emperor.
The vast empire of the Moguls was never more
flourishing than under his rule. History tells us
and Arabic languages and sciences were taught.
Translations of works of taste and art were made
at his express desire. Under his mild and equit-
able government, ‘agriculture flourished, commerce
revived, arts prospered, and his subjects enjoyed
the fruits of their increased industry, free from those
apprehensions of insecurity to which they had been
so long exposed. Truly Akbar was a great king, as
well as a great warrior!”
“ He had many solid as well as shining virtues,”
said the Brahmin, sententiously ; “ but he failed to
transmit any of them tu his posterity. His grand-
son, Shah Jehan, the last Great Mogul who resided
in the palace of the Patans, the ruins.of which you
so much admire, could not rule his own family ; his
sons were perpetually in rebellion against him, and
while his wife Noorjean lived, she possessed abso-
lute sway over his actions as well as affections.
When she died, Aurungzebe, the third son, seized
upon the throne by force and treachery, after mas-
sacring his brothers, and placing his father in
prison, where he ultimately died, not much lamented
by any class of his subjects.” a :
“His affection for his queen must have been
remarkably strong,” said the traveller, to have
may be attributed to the examples of Hindoo archi-
induced him to erect over her ashes such a magnifi-
that he established schvols, in which both the Indian.
FRANK LESLIE'S NEW YORK JOURNAL. .
cent pile asthe Tage Mahal, in Agra. But what
induced him to abandon a palace founded, like
Windsor Castle, or the Kremlin in» Moscow, by
monarchs of his own creed, if not of his race?’ -
“The cause was romantic,” said the Brahmin;
and if you, are not disinclined to listen to a story, I
will tell you.”
The traveller willingly assented, and, in view of
the sombre memorials of a past age, looking hoar
and surly in the dazzling light of an early morning
sun, the Brahmin, with much comment and circumlo-
cution, which has necessarily been omitted, related
the following narrative.
THE SULTANA’S SACRIFICE. : :
In the summer of 1719, the imperial city of Delhi
was in mourning. Shah Jehan, “The Lord and
Conqueror of the World,”.“ The Sun of Wisdom,”
“The Star of Islam,” The Light of the Universe,”
“The Puissant Emperor of India,” lay on a bed of
sickness. The mosques were filled with the faitbful,
offering up prayers for his speedy recovery; the
shops were closed, to the great grief of all the trades-
men of Delhi, and the houses, as well as the people,
wore a melancholy, apprehensive appearance. Some
of the latter, congregated in groups in the squares
and open places, were performing a ceremony dear
to Mussulmen as well as Jews. Each one in turn
waved his turban and shawl thrice round his head,
as he besought the intercession of the prophet and
all the saints, on behalf of his sovereign. « Many of
them made presents to each other, with the same
ceremony ; and a few, consisting of the most devout,
revolved within themselves the necessity of a pil-
grimage to Mecca. .
Near one of these groups, closely observing them,
stood aman in the prime of life and of distinguished
appearance, who, although he wore the oriental
costume, from’ the fairness of his complexion, was
evidently a European. _ By his side was a shrewd-
looking Mussulman, whose long white beard des-
cended to the pit of his. very’ ample stomach.
The former was an English physician, named
Boughton, one of the those energetic men who, two
centuries ago, by their tact, skill, and courage,
obtained from the Mogul court concessions which
served to lay the foundation of the British empire
in India. Boughton had proceeded from Surat to
Delhi, to negotiate with the emperor in person, for
a licence to trade within his dominions, and estab-
lish a factory on some advantageous point on the
seacoast. But just as he had found Shah Jehan
inclined to concede some trifling privileges to the
company, the negotiations were interrupted by the
latter's illness ; and the adventurer had nothing to
do but wait patiently until the light of the world
was permitted to shine again in public. His mission,
conciliatory manners, and, it must be added, convi-
vial habits had gained him the acquaintance—
frindship it could scarcely be termed—of Shen the
court sage and poet, who had good-naturedly as-
signed him quarters in the part of the palace where
he was permitted to reside. Shere had taken a
fancy to the young and dashing traveller, and fre-
quently accompanied him in his rambles in the:
town and through ‘the adjacent country, On the
present occasion both were rather tactiturn, for the
bulletin of that morning had been more dismal than
usual. The emperor had passed a very bad night
indeed. Boughton would have tendered his pro-
fessional services, but, as he knew such a step ©
would provoke jealousy, perhaps compromise. his
safety—for failure in a medical man in the East, is
the last offence that is forgiven—he hesitated.
Shere very much -approved of his determination
—indeed ventured obscurely to hint that the reco-
very of the emperor was not very ardently desired
by his sons. -
“That is very shocking!” observed the frank
traveller.
_‘* Hush!” replied the wily poet-laureate, drawing
him away from the edge of the crowd,.so as to
be beyond hearing ; ‘the very stones of Delhi have
ears 2”
“Tn the event of the emperor going the way of
all flesh,” inquired Boughton, “ what chance do you
think I shall have ?” .
“The prophet guide us!—what a question?”
replied the poet; “but as you seem so anxious, I
will tell you all I know of their mightinesses the
princes. Like all the children of the house of
Baber, they are well versed in the learning of Persia
and Arabia, and have deigned to cultivate some of
the infidel Hindoo lore of Hindostan. Dara, the
eldest, is handsome, generous, and rash.. He is a
very great favorite with everybody. The women
sing his praises morning, noon, and night... Sujah
is more prudent; but when in the pursuit of
| pleasure, he is a perfect tyrant. Aurungzebe, the