Notes:

1. January, 1836.

2. A small town, thirty-six miles south of Delhi, situated in the Gurgaon district, now included in the Panjab, but in the author's time attached to the North-Western Provinces. The town is the chief place in the 'pargana' of the same name.

3. Nineveh is not a well-chosen example, inasmuch as its decay was due to deliberate destruction, and not to mere desertion by a sovereign. It was deliberately burned and ruined by Nabopolassar, viceroy of Babylon, and his allies, about 606 B.C. The decay of Babylon was gradual. See note post, note 5.

4. Extract from a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, dated from Ajmer, January 29, 1616. The words immediately following 'rubbish' are 'His own [i.e. the King's] houses are of stone, handsome and uniform. His great men build not, for want of inheritance; but, as far as I have yet seen, live in tents, or in houses worse than our cottages. Yet, when the King likes, as at Agra, because it is a city erected by him, the buildings, as is reported, are fair and of carved stone.' (Pinkerton's Collection, vol. viii, p. 45.) The passage is not reprinted in the Hakluyt Society edition (vol. i, p. 122), where only extracts from the letter are given.

5. The site of Nineveh was forgotten for a period even longer than that stated by the author. Mr. Claudius Rich, the Resident at Baghdad, was the first European to make a tentative identification of Nineveh with the mounds opposite Mosal, in 1818. Real knowledge of the site and its history dates from the excavations of Botta begun in 1843, and those of Layard begun two years later. (Bonomi, Nineveh and its Palaces, 2nd ed., 1853; Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, 2 vols, 1849.) The author's account of the fall of Nineveh, based on that of Diodorus Siculus, is not in accordance with the conclusions of the best modern authorities. The destruction of the city in or about 606 B.C. was really effected some years after the death of Sardanapalus (Assur-banipal), in 625 B.C., by Nabopolassar (Nabupal- uzur), the rebel viceroy of Babylon, in alliance with Necho of Egypt, Cyaxares of Media, and the King of Armenia. The Assyrian monarch who perished in the assault was not Sardanapalus (Assur-banipal), but his son Assur-ebel-ili, or, according to Professor Sayce, a king called Saracus, After the destruction of Nineveh, Babylon became the capital of the Mesopotamian empire, and under Nebuchadrezzar (Nebuchadnezzar), son of Nabopolassar, who came to the throne in 604 B.C., attained the height of glory and renown. It was occupied by Cyrus in 539 B.C., and decayed gradually, but was still a place of importance in the time of Alexander the Great. The eponymous hero, Ninus, is of course purely mythical. The results of modern research will be found in the Encycl. Brit., 11th ed., 1910, in the articles 'Babylon' (Sayce), 'Babylonia and Assyria' (Sayce and Jastrow), and 'Nineveh' (Johns). See also, ibid., 'Cyrus' (Meyer).

6. Kanauj, now in the Farrukhabad district of the United Provinces, was sacked by Mahmud of Ghazni in January, A.D. 1019. The name of Mahmud's capital may be spelled Ghaznih, Ghazni, or Ghaznin. (Raverty, in J.A.S.B., Part I, vol. lxi (1892), p. 156, note.)

7. 'Pan', the well-known Indian condiment (ante, chapter 29, note 10). 'Opera girls' is a rather whimsical rendering of the more usual phrase 'nach (nautch) girls', or 'dancing girls'. The traditional numbers cited must not be accepted as historical facts. See V. A. Smith, 'The History of the City of Kanauj' (J.R.A.S., 1908, pp. 767-93).

8. This statement is too general. Benares, Allahabad (Prayag), and many other important Hindoo cities, were never deserted, and continued to be populous through all vicissitudes. It is true that in most places the principal temples were desecrated or destroyed, and were frequently converted into mosques.

9. The statement is much exaggerated. The Hindoo Rajas who paid tribute to the Sultans of Delhi often maintained considerable courts in populous towns.

10. This proposition, which is not true of Southern India at all, applies only to secular buildings in Northern India. The temples of Khajuraho, Mount Abu, and numberless other places, equal in magnificence the architecture of the Muhammadans, or, indeed, that of any people in the world.

11. The anthor's remarks seem likely to convey wrong notions. Very few of the capitals of the Muhammadan viceroys and governors were new foundations. Nearly all of them were ancient Hindoo towns adopted as convenient official residences, and enlarged and beautified by the new rulers, much of the old beauties being at the same time destroyed. Fyzabad certainly was a new foundation of the Nawab Wazirs of Oudh, but it lies so close to the extremely ancient city of Ajodhya that it should rather be regarded as a Muhammadan extension of that city. Lucknow occupies the site of a Hindoo city of great antiquity.

12. It would be difficult to point out an example of a Muhammadan standing camp which was first converted into an open, and then into a fortified town.

13. This abstract of the history of the Deccan, or Southern India, is not quite accurate. The Emperor, or Sultan, Muhammad bin Tughlak, after A.D. 1325, reduced the Deccan to a certain extent to submission, but the country revolted in A.D. 1347, when Hasan Gango founded the Bahmani dynasty of Gulbarga, afterwards known as that of Bidar. At the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, the kingdom so founded broke up into five, not four, separate states, namely, Bijapur, Ahmadnagar, Golconda, Berar, and Bidar. The Berar state had a separate existence for about eighty-five years, and then became merged in the kingdom of Ahmadnagar.



CHAPTER 64

Murder of Mr. Fraser, and Execution of the Nawab Shams-ud-din.



At Palwal Mr. Wilmot and Mr. Wright, who had come on business, and Mr. Gubbins, breakfasted and dined with us. They complained sadly of the solitude to which they were condemned, but admitted that they should not be able to get through half so much business were they placed at a large station, and exposed to all the temptations and distractions of a gay and extensive circle, nor feel the same interest in their duties, or sympathy with the people, as they do when thrown among them in this manner. To give young men good feelings towards the natives, the only good way is to throw them among them at those out-stations in the early part of their career, when all their feelings are fresh about them. This holds good as well with the military as the civil officer, but more especially with the latter. A young officer at an outpost with his corps, or part of it, for the first season or two, commonly lays in a store of good feeling towards his men that lasts him for life; and a young gentleman of the Civil Service lays in, in the same manner, a good store of sympathy and fellow feeling with the natives in general.[1]

Mr. Gubbins is the Magistrate and Collector of one of the three districts into which the Delhi territories are divided, and he has charge of Firozpur, the resumed estate of the late Nawab Shams-ud- din, which yields a net revenue of about two hundred thousand rupees a year.[2] I have already stated that this Nawab took good care that his Mewati plunderers should not rob within his own estate; but he not only gave them free permission to rob over the surrounding districts of our territory, but encouraged them to do so, that he might share in their booty.[3] He was a handsome young man, and an extremely agreeable companion; but a most unprincipled and licentious character. No man who was reputed to have a handsome wife or daughter was for a moment safe within his territories. The following account of Mr. William Fraser's assassination by this Nawab may, I think, be relied upon.[4]

The Firozpur Jagir was one of the principalities created under the principle of Lord Cornwallis's second administration, which was to make the security of the British dominions dependent upon the divisions among the independent native chiefs upon their frontiers. The person receiving the grant or confirmation of such principality from the British Government 'pledged himself to relinquish all claims to aid, and to maintain the peace in his own possessions.'[5] Firozpur was conferred by Lord Lake, in 1805, upon Ahmad Baksh, for his diplomatic services, out of the territories acquired by us west of the Jumna during the Maratha wars. He had been the agent on the part of the Hindoo chiefs of Alwar in attendance upon Lord Lake during the whole of that war. He was a great favourite, and his lordship's personal regard for him was thought by those chiefs to have been so favourable to their cause that they conferred upon him the 'pargana' of Loharu in hereditary rent-free tenure.

In 1822, Ahmad Baksh declared Shams-ud-din, his eldest son, his heir, with the sanction of the British Government and the Rajas of Alwar. In February, 1825, Shams-ud-din, at the request of his father, by a formal deed assigned over the pargana of Loharu as a provision for his younger brothers by another mother, Amin-ud-din and Zia-ud- din;[6] and in October 1826 he was finally invested by his father with the management; and the circumstance was notified to the British Government, through the Resident at Delhi, Sir Charles Metcalfe. Ahmad Baksh died in October, 1827. Disputes soon after arose between the brothers, and they expressed a desire to submit their claims to the arbitration of Sir Edward Colebrooke,[7] who had succeeded Sir Charles Metcalfe in the Residency of Delhi.[8] He referred the matter to the Supreme Government; and by their instructions, under date 11th of April, 1828, he was authorized to adjust the matter. He decided that Shams-ud-din should make a complete and unencumbered cession to his younger brothers of the pargana of Loharu, without the reservation of any right of interference in the management, or of any condition of obedience to himself whatever; and that Amin-ud-din should, till his younger brother came of age, pay into the Delhi treasury for him the annual sum of five thousand two hundred and ten rupees, as his half share of the net proceeds, to be there held in deposit for him; and that the estate should, from the time he came of age, be divided between them in equal shares. This award was confirmed by Government; but Sir Edward was recommended to alter it for an annual money payment to the two younger brothers, if he could do so with the consent of the parties.

The pargana was transferred, as the money payment could not be agreed upon; and in September Mr. Martin, who had succeeded Sir E. Colebrooke, proposed to Government that the pargana of Loharu should be restored to Shams-ud-din in lieu of a fixed sum of twenty-six thousand rupees a year to be paid by him annually to his two younger brothers. This proposal was made on the ground that Amin-ud-din could not collect the revenues from the refractory landholders (instigated, no doubt, by the emissaries of Shams-ud-din), and consequently could not pay his younger brother's revenue into the treasury. In calculating the annual net revenue of 10,420 rupees, 15,000 of the gross revenue had been estimated as the annual expenses of the mutual [sic] establishments of the two brothers. To the arrangement proposed by Mr. Martin the younger brothers strongly objected; and proposed in preference to make over the pargana to the British Government, on condition of receiving the net revenue, whatever might be the amount. Mr. Martin was desired by the Governor-General to effect this arrangement, should Amin-ud-din appear still to wish it; but he preferred retaining the management of it in his own hands, in the hope that circumstances would improve.

Shams-ud-din, however, pressed his claim to the restoration of the pargana so often that it was at last, in September, 1833, insisted upon by Government, on the ground that Amin-ud-din had failed to fulfil that article of the agreement which bound him to pay annually into the Delhi treasury 5,210 rupees for his younger brother, though that brother had never complained; on the contrary, lived with him on the best possible terms, and was as averse as himself to the retransfer of the pargana, on condition that they gave up their claims to a large share of the movable property of their late father, which had been already decided in their favour in the court of first instance. Mr. W. Fraser, who had succeeded to the office of Governor- General's representative in the Delhi Territories, remonstrated strongly against this measure; and wished to bring it again under the consideration of Government; on the grounds that Zia-ud-din had never made any complaint against his brother Amin-ud-din for want of punctuality in the payment of his share of the net revenue after the payment of their mutual establishments; that the two brothers would be deprived by this measure of an hereditary estate to the value of sixty thousand rupees a year in perpetuity, burthened with the condition that they relinquished a suit already gained in the court of first instance, and likely to be gained in appeal, involving a sum that would of itself yield them that annual sum at the moderate interest of 6 per cent. The grounds alleged by him were not considered valid, and the pargana was made over to Shams-ud-din. The pargana now yields 40,000 rupees a year, and under good management may yield 70,000.

At Mr. Fraser's recommendation, Amin-ud-din went himself to Calcutta, and is said to have prevailed upon the Government to take his case again into their consideration. Shams-ud-din had become a debauched and licentious character; and having criminal jurisdiction within his own estate, no one's wife or daughter was considered safe; for, when other means failed him, he did not scruple to employ assassins to effect his hated purposes, by removing the husband or father.[9] Mr. Fraser became so disgusted with his conduct that he would not admit him into his house when he came to Delhi, though he had, it may be said, brought him up as a child of his own; indeed he had been as fond of him as he could be of a child of his own; and the boy used to spend the greater part of his time with him. One day after Mr. Fraser had refused to admit the Nawab to his house. Colonel Skinner, having some apprehensions that by such slights he might be driven to seek revenge by assassination, is said to have remonstrated with Mr. Fraser as his oldest and most valued friend.[10] Mr. Fraser told him that he considered the Nawab to be still but a boy, and the only way to improve him was to treat him as such. It was, however, more by these slights than by any supposed injuries that Shams-ud-din was exasperated; and from that day he determined to have Mr. Fraser assassinated.[11]

Having prevailed upon a man, Karim Khan, who was at once his servant and boon companion, he sent him to Delhi with one of his carriages, which he was to have sold through Mr. McPherson, a European merchant of the city. He was ordered to stay there ostensibly for the purpose of learning the process of extracting copper from the fossil containing the ore, and purchasing dogs for the Nawab. He was to watch his opportunity and shoot Mr. Fraser whenever he might find him out at night, attended by only one or two orderlies; to be in no haste, but to wait till he found a favourable opportunity, though it should be for several months. He had with him a groom named Rupla, and a Mewati attendant named Ania, and they lodged in apartments of the Nawab's at Daryaoganj. He rode out morning and evening, attended by Ania on foot, for three months, during which he often met Mr. Fraser, but never under circumstances favourable to his purpose; and at last, in despair, returned to Firozpur. Ania, had importuned him for leave to go home to see his children, who had been ill, and Karim Khan did not like to remain without him. The Nawab was displeased with him for returning without leave, and ordered him to return to his post, and effect the object of his mission. Ania declined to return, and the Nawab recommended Karim to take somebody else, but he had, he said, explained all his designs to this man, and it would be dangerous to entrust the secret to another; and he could, moreover, rely entirely upon the courage of Ania on any trying occasion.

Twenty rupees were due to the treasury by Ania on account of the rent of the little tenement he held under the Nawab; and the treasurer consented, at the request of Karim Khan, to receive this by small instalments, to be deducted out of the monthly wages he was to receive from him. He was, moreover, assured that he should have nothing to do but to cook and eat; and should share liberally with Karim in the one hundred rupees he was taking with him in money, and the letter of credit upon the Nawab's bankers at Delhi for one thousand rupees more. The Nawab himself came with them as far as the village of Nagina, where he used to hunt; and there Karim requested permission to change his groom, as he thought Rupla too shrewd a man for such a purpose. He wanted, he said, a stupid, sleepy man, who would neither ask nor understand anything; but the Nawab told him that Rupla was an old and quiet servant, upon whose fidelity he could entirely rely; and Karim consented to take him. Ania's little tenement, upon which his wife and children resided, was only two miles distant, and he went to give instructions about gathering in the harvest, and to take leave of them. He told his wife that he was going to the capital on a difficult and dangerous duty, but that his companion Karim would do it all, no doubt. Ania asked Karim before they left Nagina what was to be his reward; and he told him that the Nawab had promised them five villages in rent-free tenure. Ania wished to learn from the Nawab himself what he might expect; and being taken to him by Karim, was assured that he and his family should be provided for handsomely for the rest of their lives, if he did his duty well on this occasion.

On reaching Delhi they took up their quarters near Colonel Skinner's house, in the Bulvemar's Ward,[12] where they resided for two months. The Nawab had told Karim to get a gun made for his purpose at Delhi, or purchase one, stating that his guns had all been purchased through Colonel Skinner, and would lead to suspicion if seen in his possession. On reaching Delhi, Karim purchased an old gun, and desired Ania to go to a certain man in the Chandni Chauk, and get it made in the form of a short blunderbuss, with a peculiar stock, that would admit of its being concealed under a cloak; and to say that he was going to Gwalior to seek service, if any one questioned him. The barrel was cut, and the instrument made exactly as Karim wished it to be by the man whom he pointed out. They met Mr. Fraser every day, but never at night; and Karim expressed regret that the Nawab should have so strictly enjoined him not to shoot him in the daytime, which he thought he might do without much risk. Ania got an attack of fever, and urged Karim to give up the attempt and return home, or at least permit him to do so. Karim himself became weary, and said he would do so very soon if he could not succeed; but that he should certainly shoot some European gentleman before he set out, and tell his master that he had taken him for Mr. Fraser—to save appearances. Ania told him that this was a question between him and his master, and no concern of his.

At the expiration of two months, a peon came to learn what they were doing. Karim wrote a letter by him to the Nawab, saying that 'the dog he wished was never to be seen without ten or twelve people about him; and that he saw no chance whatever of finding him, except in the midst of them; but that if he wished, he would purchase this dog in the midst of the crowd'. The Nawab wrote a reply, which was sent by a trooper, with orders that it should be opened in presence of no one but Ania. The contents were: 'I command you not to purchase the dog in presence of many persons, as its price will be greatly raised. You may purchase him before one person, or even two, but not before more; I am in no hurry, the longer the time you take the better; but do not return without purchasing the dog.'[13] That is, without killing Mr. Fraser.

They went on every day to watch Mr. Fraser's movements. Leaving the horse with the groom, sometimes in one old ruin of the city, and sometimes in another, ready saddled for flight, with orders that he should not be exposed to the view of passers-by, Karim and Ania used to pace the streets, and on several occasions fell in with him, but always found him attended by too many followers of one kind or another for their purpose. At last, on Sunday, the 13th of March, 1835, Karim heard that Mr. Fraser was to attend a 'nach' (dance), given by Hindoo Rao, the brother of the Baiza Bai,[14] who then resided at Delhi; and determining to try whether he could not shoot him from horseback, he sent away his groom as soon as he had ascertained that Mr. Fraser was actually at the dance. Ania went in and mixed among the assembly; and as soon as he saw Mr. Fraser rise to depart, he gave intimation to Karim, who ordered him to keep behind, and make off as fast as he could, as soon as he should hear the report of his gun.

A little way from Hindoo Rao's house the road branches off; that to the left is straight, while that to the right is circuitous. Mr. Fraser was known always to take the straight road, and upon that Karim posted himself, as the road up to the place where it branched off was too public for his purpose. As it happened, Mr. Fraser, for the first time, took the circuitous road to the right, and reached his home without meeting Karim. Ania placed himself at the cross way, and waited there till Karim came up to him. On hearing that he had taken the right road, Karim said that 'a man in Mr. Fraser's situation must be a strange ('kafir') unbeliever not to have such a thing as a torch with him in a dark night. Had he had what he ought', he said, 'I should not have lost him this time'.

They passed him on the road somewhere or other almost every afternoon after this for seven days, but could never fall in with him after dark. On the eighth day, Sunday, the 22nd of March, Karim went, as usual, in the forenoon to the great mosque to say his prayers; and on his way back in the afternoon he purchased some plums which he was eating when he came up to Ania, whom he found cooking his dinner. He ordered his horse to be saddled immediately, and told Ania to make haste and eat his dinner, as he had seen Mr. Fraser at a party given by the Raja of Kishangarh. 'When his time is come,' said Karim, 'we shall no doubt find an opportunity to kill him, if we watch him carefully.' They left the groom at home that evening, and proceeded to the 'dargah' (church) near the canal. Seeing Ania with merely a Stick in his hand, Karim bid him go back and change it for a sword, while he went in and said his evening prayers.

On being rejoined by Ania, they took the road to cantonments, which passed by Mr. Fraser's house; and Ania observed that the risk was hardly equal in this undertaking, he being on foot, while Karim was on horseback; that he should be sure to be taken, while the other might have a fair chance of escape. It was now quite dark, and Karim bid him stand by sword in hand; and if anybody attempted to seize his horse when he fired, cut him down, and be assured that while he had life he would never suffer him, Ania, to be taken. Karim continued to patrol up and down on the high-road, that nobody might notice him, while Ania stood by the road-side. At last, about eleven o'clock, they heard Mr. Fraser approach, attended by one trooper, and two 'peons' on foot; and Karim walked his horse slowly, as if he had been going from the city to the cantonments, till Mr. Fraser came up within a few paces of him, near the gate leading into his house. Karim Khan, on leaving his house, had put one large ball into his short blunderbuss; and when confident that he should now have an opportunity of shooting Mr. Fraser, he put in two more small ones. As Mr. Fraser's horse was coming up on the left side, Karim Khan tumed round his, and, as he passed, presented his blunderbuss, fired, and all three balls passed into Mr. Fraser's breast. All three horses reared at the report and flash, and Mr. Fraser fell dead on the ground. Karim galloped off, followed at a short distance by the trooper, and the two peons went off and gave information to Major Pew and Cornet Robinson, who resided near the place. They came in all haste to the spot, and had the body taken to the deceased's own house; but no signs of life remained. They reported the murder to the magistrate, and the city gates were closed, as the assassin had been seen to enter the city by the trooper.

Ania ran home through the Kabul gate of the city, unperceived, while Karim entered by the Ajmer gate, and passed first through the encampment of Hindoo Rao, to efface the traces of his horse's feet. When he reached their lodgings, he found Ania there before him; and Rupla, the groom, seeing his horse in a sweat, told him that he had had a narrow escape—that Mr. Fraser had been killed, and orders given for the arrest of any horseman that might be found in or near the city. He told him to hold his tongue, and take care of the horse; and calling for a light, he and Ania tore up every letter he had received from Firozpur, and dipped the fragments in water, to efface the ink from them. Ania asked him what he had done with the blunderbuss, and was told that it had been thrown into a well. Ania now concealed three flints that he kept about him in some sand in the upper story they occupied, and threw an iron ramrod and two spare bullets into a well near the mosque.

The next morning, when he heard that the city gates had been all shut to prevent any one from going out till strict search should be made, Karim became a good deal alarmed, and went to seek counsel from Moghal Beg, the friend of his master; but when in the evening he heard that they had been again opened, he recovered his spirits; and the next day he wrote a letter to the Nawab, saying that he had purchased the dogs that he wanted, and would soon return with them. He then went to Mr. McPherson, and actually purchased from him for the Nawab some dogs and pictures, and the following day sent Rupla, the groom, with them to Firozpur, accompanied by two bearers. A pilgrim lodged in the same place with these men, and was present when Karim came home from the murder, and gave his horse to Rupla. In the evening, after the departure of Rupla with the dogs, four men of the Gujar caste came to the place, and Karim sat down and smoked a pipe with one of them,[15] who said that he had lost his bread by Mr. Fraser's death, and should be glad to see the murderer punished—that he was known to have worn a green vest, and he hoped he would soon be discovered. The pilgrim came up to Karim shortly after these four men went away, and said that he had heard from some one that he, Karim, was himself suspected of the murder. He went again to Moghal Beg, who told him not to be alarmed, that, happily, the Regulations were now in force in the Delhi Territory, and that he had only to stick steadily to one story to be safe.

He now desired Ania to return to Firozpur with a letter to the Nawab, and to assure him that he would be stanch and stick to one story, though they should seize him and confine him in prison for twelve years. He had, he said, already sent off part of his clothes, and Ania should now take away the rest, so that nothing suspicious should be left near him.

The next morning Ania set out on foot, accompanied by Islamullah, a servant of Moghal Beg's, who was also the bearer of a letter to the Nawab. They hired two ponies when they became tired, but both flagged before they reached Nagina, whence Ania proceeded to Firozpur, on a mare belonging to the native collector, leaving Islamullah behind. He gave his letter to the Nawab, who desired him to describe the affair of the murder. He did so. The Nawab seemed very much pleased, and asked him whether Karim appeared to be in any alarm. Ania told him that he did not, and had resolved to stick to one story, though he should be imprisoned for twelve years. 'Karim Khan,' said the Nawab, turning to the brother-in-law of the former, Wasil Khan, and Hasan Ali, who stood near him—'Karim Khan is a very brave man, whose courage may be always relied on.' He gave Ania eighteen rupees, and told him to change his name, and keep close to Wasil Khan. They retired together; but, while Wasil Khan went to his house, Ania stood on the road unperceived, but near enough to hear Hasan Ali urge the Nawab to have him put to death immediately, as the only chance of keeping the fatal secret. He went off immediately to Wasil Khan, and prevailed upon him to give him leave to go home for that night to see his family, promising to be back the next morning early.

He set out forthwith, but had not been long at home when he learned that Hasan Ali, and another confidential servant of the Nawab, were come in search of him with some troopers. He concealed himself in the roof of his house, and heard them ask his wife and children where he was, saying they wanted his aid in getting out some hyaenas they had traced into their dens in the neighbourhood. They were told that he had gone back to Firozpur, and returned; but were sent back by the Nawab to make a more careful search for him. Before they came, however, he had gone off to his friends Kamruddin and Johari, two brothers who resided in the Rao Raja's territory. To this place he was followed by some Mewatis, whom the Nawab had induced, under the promise of a large reward, to undertake to kill him. One night he went to two acquaintances, Makram and Shahamat, in a neighbouring village, and begged them to send to some English gentleman in Delhi, and solicit for him a pardon, on condition of his disclosing all the circumstances of Mr. Fraser's murder. They promised to get everything done for him through a friend in the police at Delhi, and set out for that purpose, while Ania returned and concealed himself in the hills. In six days they came with a paper, purporting to be a promise of pardon from the court of Delhi, and desired Kamr-ud-din to introduce them to Ania. He told them to return to him in three days, and he would do so; but he went off to Ania in the hills, and told him that he did not think these men had really got the papers from the English gentlemen—that they appeared to him to be in the service of the Nawab himself. Ania was, however, introduced to them when they came back, and requested that the paper might be read to him. Seeing through their designs, he again made off to the hills, while they went out in search, they pretended, of a man to read it, but in reality to get some people who were waiting in the neighbourhood to assist in securing him, and taking him off to the Nawab.

Finding on their return that Ania had escaped, they offered high rewards to the two brothers if they would assist in tracing him out; and Johari was taken to the Nawab, who offered him a very high reward if he would bring Ania to him, or, at least, take measures to prevent his going to the English gentlemen. This was communicated to Ania, who went through Bharatpur to Bareilly, and from Bareilly to Secunderabad, where he heard, in the beginning of July, that both Karim and the Nawab were to be tried for the murder, and that the judge, Mr. Colvin, had already arrived at Delhi to conduct the trial. He now determined to go to Delhi and give himself up. On his way he was met by Mr. Simon Fraser's man, who took him to Delhi, when he confessed his share in the crime, became king's evidence at the trial, and gave an interesting narrative of the whole affair.

Two water-carriers, in attempting to draw up the brass jug of a carpenter, which had fallen into the well the morning after the murder, pulled up the blunderbuss which Karim Khan had thrown into the same well. This was afterwards recognized by Ania, and the man whom he pointed out as having made it for him. Two of the four Gujars, who were mentioned as having visited Karim immediately after the murder, went to Brigadier Fast, who commanded the troops at Delhi, fearing that the native officers of the European civil functionaries might be in the interest of the Nawab, and get them made away with. They told him that Karim Khan seemed to answer the description of the man named in the proclamation as the murderer of Mr. Fraser; and he sent them with a note to the Commissioner, Mr. Metcalfe, who sent them to the Magistrate, Mr. Fraser, who accompanied them to the place, and secured Karim, with some fragments of important papers. The two Mewatis, who had been sent to assassinate Ania, were found, and they confessed the fact: the brother of Ania, Rahmat, was found and he described the difficulty Ania had to escape from the Nawab's people sent to murder him. Rupla, the groom, deposed to all that he had seen during the time he was employed as Karim's groom at Delhi. Several men deposed to having met Karim, and heard him asking after Mr. Fraser a few days before the murder. The two peons, who were with Mr. Fraser when he was shot, deposed to the horse which he rode at the time, and which was found with him.

Karim Khan and the Nawab were both convicted of the crime, sentenced to death, and executed at Delhi, I should mention that suspicion had immediately attached to Karim Khan; he was known for some time to have been lurking about Delhi, on the pretence of purchasing dogs; and it was said that, had the Nawab really wanted dogs, he would not have sent to purchase them by a man whom he admitted to his table, and treated on terms of equality. He was suspected of having been employed on such occasions before—known to be a good shot, and a good rider, who could fire and reload very quickly while his horse was in full gallop, and called in consequence the 'Bharmaru.'[16] His horse, which was found in the stable by the Gujar spies, who had before been in Mr. Fraser's service, answered the description given of the murderer's horse by Mr. Fraser's attendants; and the Nawab was known to cherish feelings of bitter hatred against Mr. Fraser.

The Nawab was executed some time after Karim, on Thursday morning, the 3rd of October, 1835, close outside the north, or Kashmir Gate, leading to the cantonments. He prepared himself for the execution in an extremely rich and beautiful dress of light green, the colour which martyrs wear; but he was made to exchange this, and he then chose one of simple white, and was too conscious of his guilt to urge strongly his claim to wear what dress he liked on such an occasion.

The following corps were drawn up around the gallows, forming three sides of a square: the 1st Regiment of Cavalry, the 20th, 39th, and 69th Regiments of Native Infantry, Major Pew's Light Field Battery, and a strong party of police. On ascending the scaffold, the Nawab manifested symptoms of disgust at the approach to his person of the sweeper, who was to put the rope round his neck;[17] but he soon mastered his feelings, and submitted with a good grace to his fate. Just as he expired his body made a last turn, and left his face towards the west, or the tomb of his Prophet, which the Muhammadans of Delhi considered a miracle, indicating that he was a martyr—not as being innocent of the murder, but as being executed for the murder of an unbeliever. Pilgrimages were for some time made to the Nawab's tomb,[18] but I believe they have long since ceased with the short gleam of sympathy that his fate excited. The only people that still recollect him with feelings of kindness are the prostitutes and dancing women of the city of Delhi, among whom most of his revenues were squandered[19] In the same manner was Wazir Ali recollected for many years by the prostitutes and dancing women of Benares, after the massacre of Mr. Cherry and all the European gentlemen of that station, save one, Mr. Davis, who bravely defended himself, wife, and children against a host with a hog spear on the top of his house. No European could pass Benares for twenty years after Wazir Ali's arrest and confinement in the garrison of Fort William, without hearing from the Windows songs in his praise, and in praise of the massacre.[20]

It is supposed that the Nawab Faiz Muhammad Khan of Jhajjar was deeply implicated in this murder, though no proof of it could be found. He died soon after the execution of Shams-ud-din, and was succeeded in his fief by his eldest son, Faiz Ali Khan.[21] This fief was bestowed on the father of the deceased, whose name was Najabat Ali Khan, by Lord Lake, on the termination of the war in 1805, for the aid he had given to the retreating army under Colonel Monson.[22]

One circumstance attending the execution of the Nawab Shams-ud-din seems worthy of remark. The magistrate, Mr. Frascott, desired his crier to go through the city the evening before the execution, and proclaim to the people that those who might wish to be present at the execution were not to encroach upon the line of sentries that would be formed to keep clear an allotted space round the gallows, nor to carry with them any kind of arms; but the crier, seemingly retaining in his recollection only the words arms and sentries, gave out after his 'Oyes, Oyes,'[23] that the sentries had orders to use their arms, and shoot any man, woman, or child that should presume to go outside the wall to look at the execution of the Nawab. No person, in consequence, ventured out till the execution was over, when they went to see the Nawab himself converted into smoke; as the general impression was that as life should leave it, the body was to be blown off into the air by a general discharge of musketry and artillery. Moghal Beg was acquitted for want of judicial proof of his guilty participation in the crime.

Notes:

1. The author's remarks concerning military officers refer to officers serving with native regiments, now known as the Indian Army. Before the institution of the reformed police in 1861 the native troops used to be much scattered in detachments, guarding treasuries, and performing other duties since entrusted to the police. Detachments are now rarely sent out, except on frontier service.

2. Firozpur, the Firozpur-Jhirka of the I.G., is now the head- quarters of a sub-collectorate in the Gurgaon district. The three Districts of the Delhi Territories in Sleeman's time seem to have been Delhi, Panipat (= Karnal), and Rohtak, which were under the jurisdiction of the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces. In 1858, after the Mutiny, they were transferred to the Panjab. Since then, many administrative changes have occurred. The latest took place on October 1, 1912, on the occasion of Delhi becoming the official capital of India, instead of Calcutta. The city of Delhi with a small surrounding area, 557 square miles in all, now forms a tiny distinct province, ruled by a Chief Commissioner under the direct orders of the Government of India. The Delhi Division has ceased to exist, and six Districts, namely, Hissar, Rohtak, Karnal, Ambala (Umballa), Gurgaon, and Simla, now constitute the Commissioner's Division of Ambala in the Panjab.

3. Ante, chapter 31, text between [10] and [11]. Some great landholders of the present day pursue the same policy.

4. The story of the murder of Fraser is told very differently in Bosworth-Smith's Life of Lord Lawrence, where all the detective credit is given to Lord L., apparently on his own authority. See also an article in the Quarterly Review for April 1883, by Sir H. Yule, and another in Blackwoods Magazine for January 1878.

Miniature medallion portraits of Nawab Shams-ud-din and his servant Karim Khan are given on the frontispiece of Volume II in the original edition.

5. The inglorious second administration of Lord Cornwallis lasted only from 30th of July, 1805, the date on which he relieved the Marquis Wellesley, to the 5th of October of the same year, the date of his death at Ghazipur. 'The Marquis Cornwallis arrived in India, prepared to abandon, as far as might be practicable, all the advantages gained for the British Government by the wisdom, energy, and perseverance of his predecessor; to relax the bands by which the Marquis Wellesley had connected the greater portion of the states of India with the British Government; and to reduce that Government from the position of arbiter of the destinies of India to the rank of one among many equals.' His policy was zealously carried out by Sir George Barlow, who succeeded him, and held office till July, 1807. That statesman was not ashamed to write that 'the British possessions in the Doab will derive additional security from the contests of the neighbouring states'. (Thornton, The History of the British Empire in India, chap. 21.) This fatuous policy produced twelve years of anarchy, which were terminated by the Marquis of Hastings's great war with the Marathas and Pindharis in 1817, so often referred to in this book. Lord Lake addressed the most earnest remonstrances to Sir George Barlow without avail.

6. Amin-ud-din and Zia-ud-din's mother was the Bhao Begam, or wife; Shams-ud-din's the Bhao Khanum, or mistress. [W. H. S.]

7. Sir James Edward, third baronet, who died November 5, 1838. He was paternal uncle of Henry Thomas Colebrooke, F.R.S., the greatest of Anglo-Indian Sanskritists. The fifth baronet, Edward Arthur, was created Baron Colebrooke in 1906.

8. Sir Charles Metcalfe was for a time Assistant Resident at Delhi, and was first appointed to the Residency at the extraordinarily early age of twenty-six. He was then transferred to other posts. In 1824 he returned to the Delhi Residency, superseding Sir David Ochterlony, whose measures had been disapproved by the Government of India. He left the Residency in 1827.

9. The editor once had occasion to deal with a similar case, which resulted in the loss by the offending Raja of his rank and title. The orders were passed by the Government of Lord Dufferin.

10. Colonel Skinner, who raised the famous troops known as Skinner's Horse, died in 1841, and was buried in the church of St. James at Delhi which he had built. The church still exists. The Colonel erected opposite the church, as a memorial of his friend Fraser, a fine inlaid marble cross, which was destroyed in the Mutiny (General Hervey, Some Records of Crime, vol. i, p. 403).

11. According to General Hervey, the provocation was that Mr. Fraser had inquired from the Nawab about his sister by name (op. cit., p. 279).

12. I print this word 'Bulvemar's' as it stands in the original edition, not knowing what it means.

13. The habits of Europeans have now changed, and to most people escorts have become distasteful. High officials now constantly go about unattended, and could be assassinated with little difficulty. Happily crimes of the kind are rare, except on the Afghan frontier, where special precautions are taken.

14. For the 'Baiza Bai' see ante, chapter 50 note 4. Hindoo Rao's house became famous in 1857 as the head-quarters of the British force on the Ridge, during the siege of Delhi.

15. Many of the Gujar caste are Muhammadans.

16. That is to say 'load and fire', or 'sharpshooter'.

17. No one but a member of one of the 'outcaste castes', if the 'bull' be allowable, will act as executioner.

18. This sinister incident shows clearly the real feeling of the Muhammadan populace towards the ruling power. That feeling is unchanged, and is not altogether confined to the Muslim populace. See the following remark about the populace of Benares.

19. This remark was evidently written some time after the author's first visit to Delhi, and probably was written in the year 1839.

20. On the death of Asaf-ud-daula, Wazir Ali was, in spite of doubts as to his legitimacy, recognized by Sir John Shore (Lord Teignmouth) as the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, in 1797. On reconsideration, the Governor-General cancelled the recognition of Wazir Ali, and recognized his rival Saadat Ali. Wazir Ali was removed from Lucknow, but injudiciously allowed to reside at Benares. The Marquis Wellesley, then Earl of Mornington, took charge of the office of Governor-General in 1798, and soon resolved that it was expedient to remove Wazir Ali to a greater distance from Lucknow. Mr. Cherry, the Agent to the Governor-General, was accordingly instructed to remove him from Benares to Calcutta. The outbreak alluded to in the text occurred on January 14, 1799, and was the expression of Wazir Ali's resentment at these orders. It is described as follows by Thornton (History, chap. xvii): 'A visit which Wazir Ali made, accompanied by his suite, to the British Agent, afforded the means of accomplishing the meditated revenge. He had engaged himself to breakfast with Mr. Cherry, and the parties met in apparent amity. The usual compliments were exchanged. Wazir Ali then began to expatiate on his wrongs; and having pursued this subject for some time, he suddenly rose with his attendants, and put to death Mr. Cherry and Captain Conway, an English gentleman who happened to be present. The assassins then rushed out, and meeting another Englishman named Graham, they added him to the list of their victims. They thence proceeded to the house of Mr. Davis, judge and magistrate, who had just time to remove his family to an upper terrace, which could only be reached by a very narrow staircase. At the top of this staircase, Mr. Davis, armed with a spear, took his post, and so successfully did he defend it, that the assailants, after several attempts to dislodge him, were compelled to retire without effecting their object. The benefit derived from the resistance of this intrepid man extended beyond his own family: the delay thereby occasioned afforded to the rest of the English inhabitants opportunity of escaping to the place where the troops stationed for the protection of the city were encamped. General Erskine, on learning what had occurred, dispatched a party to the relief of Mr. Davis, and Wazir Ali thereupon retired to his own residence.' Wazir Ali escaped, but was ultimately given up by a chief with whom he had taken refuge, 'on condition that his life should be spared, and that his limbs should not be disgraced by chains'. Some of his accomplices were executed. 'He was confined at Port William, in a sort of iron cage, where he died in May, 1817, aged thirty-six, after an imprisonment of seventeen years and some odd months.' (Men whom India has Known, 2nd ed., 1874, art. 'Vizier Ali.') But Beale asserts that after many years' captivity in Calcutta, the prisoner was removed to Vellore, where he died (Or. Biogr. Dict., ed. Keene, 1894, p. 416). It will be observed that the author was mistaken in supposing that 'all the European gentlemen, except Mr. Davis and his family, were included in the massacre.'

21. These names stand in the original edition as 'Tyz Mahomed Khan, of Ghujper,' and 'Tyz Alee Khan'. In 1857 the then Nawab of Jhajjar joined the rebels. He was accordingly hanged, and his estate was confiscated. It is now included in the Rohtak District. See Fanshawe's Settlement Report of that District.

22. The disastrous retreat of Colonel Monson before Jeswant Rao Holkar during the rainy season of 1804 is one of the few serious reverses which have interrupted the long series of British victories in India. A considerable force under the command of Colonel Monson, sent out by General Lake at the beginning of May in pursuit of Holkar, was withdrawn too far from its base, and was compelled to retreat through Rajputana, and fall back on Agra. During the retreat the rains broke, and, under pressure caused by the difficulties of the march and incessant attacks of the enemy, the Company's troops became disorganized, and lost their guns and baggage. The shattered remnants of the force straggled into Agra at the end of August. The disgrace of this retreat was speedily avenged by the great victory of Dig.

23. This old Norman-French formula. Oyez, Oyez, meaning 'Hear!' is still, or recently was, used at the Assizes in the High Court, Calcutta. The formula would not now be heard at Delhi, or elsewhere beyond the precincts of the High Court.



CHAPTER 65

Marriage of a Jat Chief.

ON the 19th[1] we came on to Balamgarh,[2] fifteen miles over a plain, better cultivated and more studded with trees than that which we had been coming over for many days before. The water was near the surface, more of the field were irrigated, and those which were not so looked better—[a] range of sandstone hills, ten miles off to the west, running north and south. Balamgarh is held in rent-free tenure by a young Jat chief, now about ten years of age. He resides in a mud fort in a handsome palace built in the European fashion. In an extensive orange garden, close outside the fort, he is building a very handsome tomb over the spot where his father's elder brother was buried. The whole is formed of white and black marble, and the firm white sandstone of Rupbas, and so well conceived and executed as to make it evident that demand is the only thing wanted to cover India with works of art equal to any that were formed in the palmy days of the Muhammadan empire.[3] The Raja's young sister had just been married to the son of the Jat chief of Nabha, who was accompanied in his matrimonial visit (barat) by the chief of Ludhaura, and the son of the Sikh chief of Patiala,[4] with a cortege of one hundred elephants, and above fifteen thousand people.[5]

The young chief of Balamgarh mustered a cortege of sixty elephants and about ten thousand men to attend him out in the 'istikbal', to meet and welcome his guests. The bridegroom's party had to expend about six hundred thousand rupees in this visit alone. They scattered copper money all along the road from their homes to within seven miles of Balamgarh. From this point to the gate of the fort they had to scatter silver, and from this gate to the door of the palace they scattered gold and jewels of all kinds. The son of the Patiala chief, a lad of about ten years of age, sat upon his elephant with a bag containing six hundred gold mohurs of two guineas each, mixed up with an infinite variety of gold earrings, pearls, and precious stones, which he scattered in handfuls among the crowd. The scattering of the copper and silver had been left to inferior hands. The costs of the family of the bride are always much greater than that of the bridegroom; they are obliged to entertain at their own expense all the bridegroom's guests as well as their own, as long as they remain; and over and above this, on the present occasion, the Raja gave a rupee to every person that came, invited or uninvited. An immense concourse of people had assembled to share in this donation, and to scramble for the money scattered along the road; and ready money enough was not found in the treasury. Before a further supply could be got, thirty thousand more had collected, and every one got his rupee. They have them all put into pens like sheep. When all are in, the doors are opened at a signal given, and every person is paid his rupee as he goes out. Some European gentlemen were standing upon the top of the Raja's palace, looking at the procession as it entered the fort, and passed underneath; and the young chief threw up some handfuls of pearls, gold, and jewels among them. Not one of them would of course condescend to stoop to take up any; but their servants showed none of the same dignified forbearance.[6]

Notes:

1. January, 1836.

2. 'Balamgarh' is a mistake for Ballabgarh of I. G. (properly Ballabhgarh), which is about twenty-four miles from Delhi. In 1857 the chief was hanged for rebellion. The estate was confiscated and included in the Delhi District, under the Panjab Government. From October 1, 1912, that District ceased to exist. Part of the Ballabhgarh sub-district has been included in the new Chief Commissioner's Province of Delhi, and part in the Gurgaon District.

3. Few observers will accept this proposition without considerable reservation.

4. Patiala is the principal of the Cis-Satlaj Sikh Protected States. Nabha belongs to the same group. Both states are very loyal, and supply Imperial Service troops. For a sketch of their history see chapters 2 and 9 of Sir Lepel Griffin's Ranjit Singh.

5. The Sikh is a military nation formed out of the Jats (who were without a place among the castes of the Hindoos),[a] by that strong bond of union, the love of conquest and plunder. Their religions and civil codes are the Granths, books written by their reputed prophets, the last of whom was Guru Govind,[b] in whose name Ranjit Singh stamps his gold coins with this legend: 'The sword, the pot, victory, and conquest were quickly found in the grace of Guru Govind Singh,'[c] This prophet died insane in the end of the seventeenth century. He was the son of a priest Teg Bahadur, who was made a martyr of by the bigoted Muhammadans of Patna in 1675. The son became a Peter the Hermit, in the same manner as Hargovind before him, when his father, Arjun Mal, was made a martyr by the fanaticism of the same people. A few more such martyrdoms would have set the Sikhs up for ever. They admit converts freely, and while they have a fair prospect of conquest and plunder they will find them; but, when they cease, they will be swallowed up in the great ocean of Hinduism, since they have no chance of getting up an 'army of martyrs' while we have the supreme power.[d] They detest us for the same reason that the military followers of the other native chiefs detest us, because we say 'Thus far shall you go, and no farther' in your career of conquest and plunder.[e] As governors, they are even worse than the Marathas—utterly detestable. They have not the slightest idea of a duty towards the people from whose industry they are provided. Such a thing was never dreamed of by a Sikh. They continue to receive in marriage the daughters of Jats, as in this case; but they will not give their daughters to Jats. [W. H. S.]

6. The Emperors of Delhi, from Jahangir onwards, used to strike special coins, generally of small size, bearing the word nisar, which means 'scattering', for the purpose of distribution among the crowd on the occasion of a wedding, or other great festivity.

a. It has already been observed that the author was completely mistaken in his estimate of the social position of Jats. It is not correct to say that they 'were without a place among the castes of the Hindoos'. 'The Jat is in every respect the most important of the Panjab peoples. . . . The distinction between Jat and Rajput is social rather than ethnic. . . . Socially the Jat occupies a position which is shared by the Ror, the Gujar, and the Ahir; all four eating and smoking together. Among the races of purely Hindoo origin I think that the Jat stands next after the Brahman, the Rajput, and the Khatri. . . . There are Jats and Jats. . . . His is the highest of the castes practising widow marriage.' (Ibbetson, Outlines of Panjab Ethnography, Calcutta, 1883, pp. 220 sqq.) The Jats in the United Provinces occupy much the same relative position.

b. The Sikhs are mostly, but not all, Jats. The organization is essentially a religions one, and a few Brahmans and many members of various other castes join it. Even sweepers are admitted with certain limitations. The word Sikh means 'disciple'. Nanak Shah, the founder, was born in A.D. 1469. The Adi Granth, the Sikh Bible, containing compositions by Nanak, his next four successors, and other persons, was completed in 1604. A second Granth was compiled in 1734 by Govind Singh, the tenth Guru. The only authoritative version of the Sikh scriptures is the great work by Macauliffe, The Sikh Religion (Oxford, 1909, 6 vols.).

The political power of the sect rested on the institutions of Guru Govind, as framed between 1690 and 1708. In 1764 the Sikhs occupied Lahore. Full details of their history will be found in Cunningham, A History of the Sikhs (1st ed., 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1849, suppressed and scarce; 2nd ed. 1853); and more briefly in Sir Lepel Griffin's excellent little book, Ranjit Singh (Oxford, 'Rulers of India' series, 1892).

c. See R. 0. Temple, 'The Coins of the Modern Chiefs of the Panjab' (Ind. Ant., vol. xviii (1889), pp. 321-41); and C. J. Rodgers, 'On the Coins of the Sikhs' (J.A.S.B., vol. 1. Part I (1881), pp. 71- 93). The couplet is in Persian, which may be transliterated thus:—

Deg, tegh, wa fath, wa nasrat be darang Yaft az Nanak Guru Govind Singh.



The word deg, meaning pot or cauldron, is used as a symbol of plenty. The correct rendering is:—

Plenty, the sword, victory, and help without delay, Guru Govind Singh obtained from Nanak.

d. This prophecy has not been fulfilled. The annexation of the Panjab in 1849 put an end to Sikh hopes of 'conquest and plunder', and yet the sect has not been 'swallowed up in the great ocean of Hinduism'. At the census of 1881 its numbers were returned as 1,853,426, or nearly two millions, for all India. The corresponding figure for 1891 is 1,907,833. At the time of the first British census of 1855 the outside influences were depressing: the great Khalsa army had fallen, and Sikh fathers were slow to bring forward their sons for baptism (pahul). The Mutiny, in the suppression of which the Sikhs took so great a part, worked a change. The Sikhs recovered their spirits and self-respect, and found honourable careers open in the British army and constabulary. 'Thus the creed received a new impulse, and many sons of Sikhs, whose baptism had been deferred, received the pahul, while new candidates from among the Jats and lower caste Hindoos joined the faith.' Some reaction then, perhaps, took place, but, on the whole, the numbers of the sect have been maintained or increased. (Sir Lepel Griffin, Ranjit Singh, pp. 25-34.) For various reasons, which I have not space to explain, the statistics of Sikhism are untrustworthy. The returns for 1911 show an increase of 37 per cent. in the Panjab. We may, at least, be assured that the numbers are not diminishing.

e. The Sikhs do not now detest us. They willingly furnish soldiers and military police of the best class, equal to the Gorkhas, and fit to fight in line with English soldiers. The Panjab chieftains have been among the foremost in offers of loyal assistance to the Government of India in times of danger, and in organizing the Imperial Service troops. The Sikh states are now sufficiently well governed.



CHAPTER 66

Collegiate Endowment of Muhammadan Tombs and Mosques.

On the 20th[1] we came to Badarpur, twelve miles over a plain, with the range of hills on our left approaching nearer and nearer the road, and separating us from the old city of Delhi. We passed through Faridpur, once a large town, and called after its founder, Shaikh Farid, whose mosque is still in good order, though there is no person to read or hear prayers in it.[2] We passed also two fine bridges, one of three, and one of four arches, both over what were once streams, but are now dry beds of sand.[3] The whole road shows signs of having been once thickly peopled, and highly adorned with useful and ornamental works when Delhi was in its glory.

Every handsome mausoleum among Muhammadans was provided with its mosque, and endowed by the founder with the means of maintaining men of learning to read their Koran over the grave of the deceased and in his chapel; and, as long as the endowment lasted, the tomb continued to be at the same time a college. They read the Koran morning and evening over the grave, and prayers in the chapel at the stated periods; and the rest of their time is commonly devoted to the instruction of the youths of their neighbourhood, either gratis or for a small consideration. Apartments in the tomb were usually set aside for the purpose, and these tombs did ten times more for education in Hindustan than all the colleges formed especially for the purpose.[4] We might suppose that rulers who formed and endowed such works all over the land must have had more of the respect and the affections of the great mass of the people than we, who, as my friend upon the Jumna has it, 'build nothing but private dwelling- houses, factories, courts of justice, and jails', can ever have; but this conclusion would not be altogether just.[5] Though every mosque and mausoleum was a seat of learning, that learning, instead of being a source of attraction and conciliation between the Muhammadans and Hindoos, was, on the contrary, a source of perpetual repulsion and enmity between them—it tended to keep alive in the breasts of the Musalmans a strong feeling of religions indignation against the worshippers of idols; and of dread and hatred in those of the Hindoos.

The Koran was the Book of books, spoken by God to the angel Gabriel in parts as occasion required, and repeated by him to Muhammad; who, unable to write himself, dictated them to any one who happened to be present when he received the divine communications;[6] it contained all that it was worth man's while to study or know—it was from the Deity, but at the same time coeternal with Him—it was His divine eternal spirit, inseparable from Him from the beginning, and therefore, like Him, uncreated. This book, to read which was of itself declared to be the highest of all species of worship, taught war against the worshippers of idols to be of all merits the greatest in the eye of God; and no man could well rise from the perusal without the wish to serve God by some act of outrage against them. These buildings were, therefore, looked upon by the Hindoos, who composed the great mass of the people, as a kind of religions volcanoes, always ready to explode and pour out their lava of intolerance and outrage upon the innocent people of the surrounding country.

If a Hindoo fancied himself injured or insulted by a Muhammadan he was apt to revenge himself upon the Muhammadans generally, and insult their religion by throwing swine's flesh, or swine's blood, into one of their tombs or churches; and the latter either flew to arms at once to revenge their God, or retaliated by throwing the flesh or the blood of the cow into the first Hindoo temple at hand, which made the Hindoos fly to arms. The guilty and the wicked commonly escaped, while numbers of the weak, the innocent and the unoffending were slaughtered. The magnificent buildings, therefore, instead of being at the time bonds of union, were commonly sources of the greatest discord among the whole community, and of the most painful humiliation to the Hindoo population. During the bigoted reign of Aurangzeb and his successors a Hindoo's presence was hardly tolerated within sight of these tombs or churches; and had he been discovered entering one of them, he would probably have been hunted down like a mad dog. The recollection of such outrages, and the humiliation to which they gave rise, associated as they always are in the minds of the Hindoos with the sight of these buildings, are perhaps the greatest source of our strength in India; because they at the same time feel that it is to us alone they owe the protection which they now enjoy from similar injuries. Many of my countrymen, full of virtuous indignation at the outrages which often occur during the processions of the Muharram, particularly when these happen to take place at the same time with some religious procession of the Hindoos, are very anxious that our Government should interpose its authority to put down both. But these processions and occasional outrages are really sources of great strength to us; they show at once the necessity for the interposition of an impartial tribunal, and a disposition on the part of the rulers to interpose impartially. The Muhammadan festivals are regulated by the lunar, and those of the Hindoos by the solar year, and they cross each other every thirty or forty years, and furnish fair occasions for the local authorities to interpose effectually.[7] People who receive or imagine insults or injuries commonly postpone their revenge till these religious festivals come round, when they hope to be able to settle their accounts with impunity among the excited crowd. The mournful procession of the Muharram, when the Muhammadans are inflamed to madness by the recollection of the really affecting incidents of the massacre of the grandchildren of their prophet, and by the images of their tombs, and their sombre music,[8] crosses that of the Holi[9] (in which the Hindoos are excited to tumultuous and licentious joy by their bacchanalian songs and dances) every thirty-six years; and they reign together for some four or five days, during which the scene in every large town is really terrific. The processions are liable to meet in the street, and the lees of the wine of the Hindoos, or the red powder which is substituted for them, is liable to fall upon the tombs of the others. Hindoos pass on, forgetting in their saturnalian joy all distinctions of age, sex, or religion, their clothes and persons besmeared with the red powder, which is moistened and thrown from all kinds of machines over friend and foe; while meeting these come the Muhammadans, clothed in their green mourning, with gloomy downcast looks, beating their breasts, ready to kill themselves, and too anxious for an excuse to kill anybody else. Let but one drop of the lees of joy fall upon the image of the tomb as it passes, and a hundred swords fly from their scabbards; many an innocent person falls; and woe be to the town in which the magistrate is not at hand with his police and military force. Proudly conscious of their power, the magistrates refuse to prohibit one class from laughing because the other happens to be weeping; and the Hindoos on such occasions laugh the more heartily to let the world see that they are free to do so.

A very learned Hindoo once told me in Central India that the oracle of Mahadeo had been at the same time consulted at three of his greatest temples—one in the Deccan, one in Rajputana, and one, I think, in Bengal—as to the result of the government of India by Europeans, who seemed determined to fill all the high offices of administration with their own countrymen, to the exclusion of the people of the country. A day was appointed for the answer; and when the priest came to receive it they found Mahadeo (Siva) himself with a European complexion, and dressed in European clothes. He told them that their European Government was in reality nothing more than a multiplied incarnation of himself; and that he had come among them in this shape to prevent their cutting each other's throats as they had been doing for some centuries past; that these, his incarnations, appeared to have no religion themselves in order that they might be the more impartial arbitrators between the people of so many different creeds and sects who now inhabited the country; that they must be aware that they never had before been so impartially governed, and that they must continue to obey these their governors, without attempting to pry further into futurity or the will of the gods. Mahadeo performs a part in the great drama of the Ramayana, or the Rape of Sita, and he is the only figure there that is represented with a white face.[10]

I was one day praising the law of primogeniture among ourselves to a Muhammadan gentleman of high rank, and defending it on the ground that it prevented that rivalry and bitterness of feeling among brothers which were always found among the Muhammadans, whose law prescribes an equal division of property, real and personal, among the sons, and the choice of the wisest among them as successor to the government.[11] 'This', said he, 'is no doubt the source of our weakness, but why should you condemn a law which is to you a source of so much strength? I, one day', said he, 'asked Mr. Seaton, the Governor-General's representative at the court of Delhi, which of all things he had seen in India he liked best. "You have", replied he, smiling, "a small species of melon called 'phut' (disunion); this is the thing we like best in your land." There was', continued my Muhammadan friend, 'an infinite deal of sound political wisdom in this one sentence. Mr. Seaton was a very good and a very wise man. Our European governors of the present day are not at all the same kind of thing. I asked Mr. B., a judge, the same question many years afterwards, and he told me that he thought the rupees were the best things he had found in India. I asked Mr. T., the Commissioner, and he told me that he thought the tobacco which he smoked in his hookah was the best thing. And pray, sir, what do you think the best thing?'

'Why, Nawab Sahib, I am always very well pleased when I am free from pain, and can get my nostrils full of cool air, and my mouth full of cold water in this hot land of yours; and I think most of my countrymen are the same. Next to these, the thing we all admire most in India, Nawab Sahib, is the entire exemption which you and I and every other gentleman, native or European, enjoy from the taxes which press so heavily upon them in other countries.[12] In Kashmir, no midwife is allowed to attend a woman in her confinement till a heavy tax has been paid to Ranjit Singh for the infant; and in England, a man cannot let the light of heaven into his house till he has paid a tax for the window.'[13]

'Nor keep a dog, nor shoot a partridge in the jungle, I am told,' said the Nawab.

'Quite true, Nawab Sahib.'

'Hindustan, sir,' said he, 'is, after all, the best country in the world; the only thing wanted is a little more (rozgar) employment for the educated classes under Government.'

'True, Nawab Sahib, we might, no doubt, greatly multiply this employment to the advantage of those who got the places, but we should have to multiply at the same time the taxes, to the great disadvantage of those who did not get them.'

'True, very true, sir,' said my old friend.

Notes:

1. January, 1836.

2. Faridpur is a mistake for Faridabad, a small town sixteen miles from Delhi, founded in 1607 by Shaikh Farid, treasurer of Jahangir, to protect the high road between Agra and Delhi.

3. The beds are dry in the cold season, but the streams, which flow from the hills to the south of Delhi, are torrents in the rainy season.

4. But the education in such schools is of very little value, being commonly confined to the committing of the Koran to memory by boys ignorant of Arabic.

5. In modern India the British buildings are far more varied, and many aspire to some architectural merit.

6. Muhammad is said to have received these communications in all situations; sometimes when riding along the road on his camel, he became suddenly red in the face, and greatly agitated; he made his camel sit down immediately, and called for some one to write. His rhapsodies were all written at the time on leaves and thrown into a box. Gabriel is believed to have made him repeat over the whole once every year during the month of Ramazan. In the year he died Muhammad told his followers that the angel had made him repeat them over twice that year, and that he was sure he would not live to receive another visit. [W. H. S.]

7. The Muhammadan year consists of twelve lunar months of 30 and 29 days alternately. The common year, therefore, consists of only 354 days. But, when intercalary days in certain years are allowed for, the mean year consists of 354 11/30 days. Inasmuch as a solar year consists of about 365 1/4 days, the difference amounts to nearly 11 days, and any given month in the Muhammadan year consequently goes the round of the seasons in course of time.

8. The Muharram celebration takes its name from the first month of the Muhammadan year, during which it takes place. Ali, the cousin of Muhammad, was married to the prophet's daughter Fatima, and, according to the Shia sect, must be regarded as the lawful successor of Muhammad, who died in June, A.D. 632. But, as a matter of fact, Omar, Abu Bakr, and Othman (Usman) in turn succeeded to the Khalifate, and Ali did not take possession of the office till A.D. 655. After five and a half years' reign he was assassinated in January, A.D. 661, and his son Hasan, who for a few months had held the vacant office, was poisoned in A.D. 670. Husain, the younger son of Ali, strove to assert his rights by force of arms, but was slain on the tenth day of the month Muharram (10th October, A.D. 680) in a great battle fought at Karbala near the Euphrates. These events are commemorated yearly by noisy funeral processions. Properly, the proceedings ought to be altogether mournful, and confined to the Shia sect, but in practice, Sunni Muhammadans, and even Hindoos, take part in the ceremonies, which are regarded by many of the populace as no more solemn than a Lord Mayor's show.

9. The disgusting festival of the Holi, celebrated with drunkenness and obscenity, takes place in March, and is supposed to be the festival of the vernal equinox (see ante, chapter 27 note 16). The magistrates in India have no duty which requires more tact, discretion, and firmness than the regulation of conflicting religions processions. The general disarmament of the people has rendered collisions less dangerous and sanguinary than they used to be, but, in spite of all precautions, they still occur occasionally. The total prohibition of processions likely to cause collisions is, of course, impracticable.

10. Ante chapter 15 text at [9].

11. Muslim daughters also succeed, each taking half the share of a son.

12. Tempora mutantur. The land revenue, in the author's time, fully preserved its character of rent, and obviously was not a tax. Later legislation has obscured its real nature, and made it look like a tax. When the author wrote, the only taxes levied were indirect ones, as that on salt, which was paid unconsciously. The modern income-tax, local rates, municipal taxation, and gun licences were all unknown.

13. The window tax was levied at varying rates from 1697 to 1851.



CHAPTER 67

The Old City of Delhi.

On the 21st we went on eight miles to the Kutb Minar, across the range of sandstone hills, which rise to the height of about two hundred feet, and run north and south. The rocks are for the most part naked, but here and there the soil between them is covered with famished grass, and a few stunted shrubs; anything more unprepossessing can hardly be conceived than the aspect of these hills, which seem to serve no other purpose than to store up heat for the people of the great city of Delhi. We passed through a cut in this range of hills, made apparently by the stream of the river Jumna at some remote period, and about one hundred yards wide at the entrance. This cut is crossed by an enormous stone wall running north and south, and intended to shut in the waters, and form a lake in the opening beyond it. Along the brow of the precipice, overlooking the northern end of the wall, is the stupendous fort of Tughlakabad, built by the Emperor Tughlak the First[1] of the sandstones of the range of hills on which it stands, cut into enormous square blocks.[2]

On the brow of the opposite side of the precipice, overlooking the southern end of the wall, stands the fort of Muhammadabad, built by this Emperor's son and successor, Muhammad, and resembling in all things that built by his father.[3] These fortresses overlooked the lake, with the old city of Delhi spread out on the opposite side of it to the west. There is a third fortress upon an isolated hill, east of the great barrier wall, said to have been built in honour of his master by the Emperor Tughlak's barber.[4] The Emperor's tomb stands upon an isolated rock in the middle of the once lake, now plain, about a mile to the west of the barrier wall. The rock is connected with the western extremity of the northern fortress by a causeway of twenty-five arches, and about one hundred and fifty yards long. This is a fine tomb, and contains in a square centre room the remains of the Emperor Tughlak, his wife, and his son. The tomb is built of red sandstone, and surmounted by a dome of white marble. The three graves inside are built of brick covered with stucco work. The outer sides of the tomb slope slightly inwards from the base, in the form of a pyramid; but the inner walls are, of course, perpendicular.[5]

The impression left on the mind after going over these stupendous fortifications is that the arts which contribute to the comforts and elegancies of life must have been in a very rude state when they were raised. Domestic architecture must have been wretched in the extreme. The buildings are all of stone, and almost all without cement, and seem to have been raised by giants, and for giants, whose arms were against everybody, and everybody's arm against them. This was indeed the state of the Pathan sovereigns in India—they were the creatures of their armies; and their armies were also employed against the people, who feared and detested them all.[6]

The Emperor Tughlak, on his return at the head of the army, which he had led into Bengal to chastise some rebellious subjects, was met at Afghanpur by his eldest son, Juna, whom he had left in the government of the capital. The prince had in three days raised here a palace of wood for a grand entertainment to do honour to his father's return; and when the Emperor signified his wish to retire, all the courtiers rushed out before him to be in attendance, and among the rest, Juna himself. Five attendants only remained when the Emperor rose from his seat, and at that moment the building fell in and crushed them and their master. Juna had been sent at the head of an army into the Deccan, where he collected immense wealth from the plunder of the palaces of princes and the temples of their priests, the only places in which much wealth was to be found in those days. This wealth he tried to conceal from his father, whose death he probably thus contrived, that he might the sooner have the free enjoyment of it with unlimited power.[7]

Only thirty years before, Ala-ud-din, returning in the same manner at the head of an army from the Deccan loaded with wealth, murdered the Emperor Firoz the Second, the father of his wife, and ascended the throne.[8] Juna ascended the throne under the name of Muhammad the Third;[9] and, after the remains of his father had been deposited in the tomb I have described, he passed in great pomp and splendour from the fortress of Tughlakabad, which his father had just then completed, to the city in which the Minar stands, with elephants before and behind loaded with gold and silver coins, which were scattered among the crowd, who everywhere hailed him with shouts of joy. The roads were covered with flowers, the houses adorned with the richest stuffs, and the streets resounded with music.

He was a man of great learning, and a great patron of learned men; he was a great founder of churches, had prayers read in them at the prescribed times, and always went to prayers five times a day himself.[10] He was rigidly temperate himself in his habits, and discouraged all intemperance in others. These things secured him panegyrists throughout the empire during the twenty-seven years that he reigned over it, though perhaps he was the most detestable tyrant that ever filled a throne. He would take his armies out over the most populous and peaceful districts, and hunt down the innocent and unoffending people like wild beasts, and bring home their heads by thousands to hang them on the city gates for his mere amusement. He twice made the whole people of the city of Delhi emigrate with him to Daulatabad in Southern India, which he wished to make the capital, from some foolish fancy; and during the whole of his reign gave evident signs of being in an unsound state of mind.[11] There was at the time of his father's death a saint at Delhi named Nizamuddin Aulia, or the Saint, who was supposed by supernatural means to have driven from Delhi one night in a panic a large army of Moghals under Tarmasharin, who invaded India from Transoxiana in 1303, and laid close siege to the city of Delhi, in which the Emperor Ala-ud-din was shut up without troops to defend himself, his armies being engaged in Southern India.[12] It is very likely that he did strike this army with a panic by getting some of their leaders assassinated in one night. He was supposed to have the 'dast ul ghaib', or supernatural purse' [literally, 'invisible hand'], as his private expenditure is said to have been more lavish even than that of the Emperor himself, while he had no ostensible source of income whatever. The Emperor was either jealous of his influence and display, or suspected him of dark crimes, and threatened to humble him when he returned to Delhi. As he approached the city, the friends of the saint, knowing the resolute spirit of the Emperor, urged him to quit the capital, as he had been often heard to say, 'Let me but reach Delhi, and this proud priest shall be humbled'.

The only reply that the saint would ever deign to give from the time the imperial army left Bengal, till it was within one stage of the capital, was 'Dihli dur ast'; 'Delhi is still far off'. This is now become a proverb over the East equivalent to our 'There is many a slip between the cup and the lip'. It is probable that the saint had some understanding with the son in his plans for the murder of his father; it is possible that his numerous wandering disciples may in reality have been murderers and robbers, and that he could at any time have procured through them the assassination of the Emperor. The Muhammadan Thugs, or assassins of India, certainly looked upon him as one of the great founders of their system, and used to make pilgrimages to his tomb as such; and, as he came originally from Persia, and is considered by his greatest admirers to have been in his youth a robber, it is not impossible that he may have been originally one of the 'assassins', or disciples of the 'old man of the mountains', and that he may have set up the system of Thuggee in India and derived a great portion of his income from it.[13] Emperors now prostrate themselves, and aspire to have their bones placed near it [scil. the tomb]. While wandering about the ruins, I remarked to one of the learned men of the place who attended us that it was singular Tughlak's buildings should be so rude compared with those of Iltutmish, who had reigned more than eighty years before him.[14] 'Not at all singular,' said he, 'was he not under the curse of the holy saint Nizam-ud-din?' 'And what had the Emperor done to merit the holy man's curse?' 'He had taken by force to employ upon his palaces several of the masons whom the holy man was employing upon a church,' said he.

The Kutb Minar was, I think, more beyond my expectations than the Taj; first, because I had heard less of it; and secondly, because it stands as it were alone in India—there is absolutely no other tower in this Indian empire of ours.[15]

Large pillars have been cut out of single stones, and raised in different parts of India to commemorate the conquests of Hindoo princes, whose names no one was able to discover for several centuries, till an unpretending English gentleman of surprising talents and industry, Mr. James Prinsep, lately brought them to light by mastering the obsolete characters in which they and their deeds had been inscribed upon them.[16] These pillars would, however, be utterly insignificant were they composed of many stones. The knowledge that they are cut out of single stones, brought from a distant mountain, and raised by the united efforts of multitudes when the mechanical arts were in a rude state, makes us still view them with admiration.[17] But the single majesty of this Minar of Kutb-ud- din, so grandly conceived, so beautifully proportioned, so chastely embellished, and so exquisitely finished, fills the mind of the spectator with emotions of wonder and delight; without any such aid, he feels that it is among the towers of the earth what the Taj is among the tombs—something unique of its kind that must ever stand alone in his recollections.[18]

It is said to have taken forty-four years in building, and formed the left of two 'minars' of a mosque. The other 'minar' was never raised, but this has been preserved and repaired by the liberality of the British Government.[19] It is only 242 feet high, and 106 feet in circumference at the base. It is circular, and fluted vertically into twenty-seven semicircular and angular divisions. There are four balconies, supported upon large stone brackets, and surrounded with battlements of richly cut stone, to enable people to walk round the tower with safety. The first is ninety feet from the base, the second fifty feet further up, the third forty further; and the fourth twenty-four feet above the third. Up to the third balcony, the tower is built of fine, but somewhat ferruginous sandstone, whose surface has become red from exposure to the oxygen of the atmosphere. Up to the first balcony, the flutings are alternately semicircular and angular; in the second story they are all semicircular, and in the third all angular. From the third balcony to the top, the building is composed chiefly of white marble; and the surface is without the deep flutings. Around the first story there are five horizontal belts of passages from the Koran, engraved in bold relief, and in the Kufic character. In the second story there are four, and in the third three. The ascent is by a spiral staircase within, of three hundred and eighty steps; and there are passages from this staircase to the balconies, with others here and there for the admission of light and air.[20]

A foolish notion has prevailed among some people, over-fond of paradox, that this tower is in reality a Hindoo building, and not, as commonly supposed, a Muhammadan one. Never was paradox supported upon more frail, I might say absurd, foundations. They are these: 1st, that there is only one Minar, whereas there ought to have been two— had the unfinished one been intended as the second, it would not have been, as it really is, larger than the first; 2nd, that other Minars seen in the present day either do not slope inward from the base up at all, or do not slope so much as this. I tried to trace the origin of this paradox, and I think I found it in a silly old 'munshi' (clerk) in the service of the Emperor. He told me that he believed it was built by a former Hindoo prince for his daughter, who wished to worship the rising sun, and view the waters of the Jumna from the top of it every morning.[21]

There is no other Hindoo building like, or of the same kind as this;[22] the ribbons or belts of passages from the Koran are all in relief; and had they not been originally inserted as they are, the whole surface of the building must have been cut down to throw them out in bold relief. The slope is the peculiar characteristic of all the architecture of the Pathans, by whom the church to which this tower belongs was built.[23] Nearly all the arches of the church are still standing in a more or less perfect state, and all correspond in design, proportion, and execution to the tower. The ruins of the old Hindoo temples about the place, and about every other place in India, are totally different in all three; here they are all exceedingly paltry and insignificant, compared with the church and its tower, and it is evident that it was the intention of the founder to make them appear so to future generations of the faithful, for he has taken care to make his own great work support rather than destroy them, that they might for ever tend to enhance its grandeur.[24] It is sufficiently clear that the unfinished minar was commenced upon too large a scale, and with too small a diminution of the circumference from the base upwards. It is two-fifths larger than the finished tower in circumference, and much more perpendicular. Finding these errors when they had got some thirty feet from the foundation, the founder, Shams-ud-din (Iltutmish), began to work anew, and had he lived a little longer, there is no doubt that he would have raised the second tower in its proper place, upon the same scale as the one completed. His death was followed by several successive revolutions; five sovereigns succeeded each other on the throne of Delhi in ten years.[25] As usual on such occasions, works of peace were suspended, and succeeding sovereigns sought renown in military enterprise rather than in building churches. This church was entire, with the exception of the second minar, when Tamerlane invaded India.[26] He took back a model of it with him to Samarkand, together with all the masons he could find at Delhi, and is said to have built a church upon the same plan at that place, before he set out for the invasion of Syria.