Delhi Red Fort
Now today, Friday 18th (a very great day throughout Mahomedanism lands) we have seen much of interest. The US Consul (Mr Short)[1] & his wife & I set of[f] at 10 to visit the Old Fort (Old Delhi) & the Kutb or Kootub Minar, 11 miles from the hotel. A great sight, this is. The Minar 370 feet high, wonderfully built & carved in a style truly magnificent. I got 2 shots & also 2 of a celebrated gate with the famous iron pillar, & the fine pillared & arched mosque – see encyclo. On the way to this place are numerous mosques, tombs & fine old ruins of walled cities, forts & temples, [2:32] some in perfect repair & most lovely within. I got 2 or 3 views here & there. I dare say about 24 & surely some of them will come out right, & here let me say it is no use me making note of every one as I found when getting 2 spools developed at Bombay, I could only distinguish them by knowing that this spool represented such a city so I mark the spool, Jeypore, Delhi & so on but I hope to distinguish after I get home & compare them with illustrations in books on the countries visited, & surely my own will refresh my memory.
The people were flocking in hundreds today from all quarters to be present at the mosque. It is Friday, their sacred day, but it is also a Mahomedan festival the 29th day of the month.[2] All were got up in clean garments, some elaborately gay, & on our return journey met many returning to their villages some on camels, ponies, bullocks, small curious 2 wheeled carts, some in bullock carts & waggons & so on, & when we got into the native city it was like a fair: immense crowds, & lots making purchases: cloth, beds, caps, toys &c. The city where the natives dwell is filthy & dilapidated & decay all along the streets. Bulls walk on the paths, sheep & goats also, & no one moves them. The bull lays down any where unmolested, & the great number of bullock waggons & carts are a sight every where, & great loads they carry, & they are used for pack purposes & load them[3] [2:33] to such an extent that you can only see their head & tail, donkeys innumerable & poor creatures. It’s pitiful to see them so loaded & so ill fed, no harness of any kind whatever on the donkey, not even a rope to lead them, & they go in droves, carrying stones on their backs in a sack cut in two, & the bottom across their back & the inside filled, the 2 corners sticking out at each side. Women seem to do all the slavery, carrying, breaking stones, mending roads, working in the fields. The men are lazy & do very little, & children run about naked, not even a loincloth. Men only with loin cloth, these do some labour, others with cotton drapery on, & the better class fairly well clothed. The Parsees are in close fashion after the European. One I noted yesterday with leggings buttoned down the front, tanned shoes & a great swell.
The shop keepers are great pests. As we drive about the streets, they swarm around the carriage, pushing cards & circulars into your hands & pressing you to stop & come in & look at their fine work, “no need to buy, only with his honour favour him with a visit” & where you do buy, out comes a book to register your name & remarks, & some remarks are queer. One man, a photographer who spoke English well, asked me if I would just write in his book how fluently he could speak English. Oh, how amusing to us they are, & the beggars[4] [2:34] & children every where calling to you for “Buksheesh”. While in a Jain Temple yesterday, there was a school just on the same level & I snapped the children, & they were delighted. Then shopkeepers come to the hotels especially at night & spre[a]d their wares out before the verandah. Very beautiful work is done in every city & each has its own peculiar art. We went into a technical & art school in Jeypore & it was amazing to see the most lovely engravings on silver and metal, & here embroidery, gold & silver, is worked. You see it being done. Look up the encyclo: & see what it says about the Emperor Houmayoun’s[5] tomb near Delhi. We were at it this forenoon on our way to Kootab: marvellous architecture. I got a good picture. Vegetation here away is a little better. It is cool here & the wheat & barley & other crops I saw, 1 field of turnips on the way, but all the land is irrigated, wells everywhere & bullocks draw the water in big leather vessels. Some wells are a great depth. One mosque where we were today had a fine square tank 39[6] feet deep & here is a speciality: men go on the very top of the mosque cupulas [sic] & dive down 50 feet into the tank for 4 aunas[7] each. I snapped one & hope it will be good.
The departed glory & the decay & worn-outness all around is terribly conspicuous, but [2:35] to think of what all we’ve seen once was, & the grandeur of these princes & rajahs, & the power they exercised, & the enormous wealth coupled with the barbarities they practised bewilders me. I must add here that when at Amber Palace we saw the place where a goat is sacrificed every morning at 8. When the Rajah visits this mosque, twice a year, they slay a bullock but prior to the mutiny a human being was slain every morning at 8. I can tell you more about this when we speak of it at home.
I was too weary to carry my Kodak to Amber as I had it all forenoon with me but I regretted very, very much I had not taken it with me. Caine has a very fair illustration of it but only a print.
Now it is after 10 so I must leave of[f] here & retire as we start at 9 in the morning for Agra.
[1] Despatches from United States consuls in Constantinople, 1820-1906
[2] The Islamic calendar (or Hijri calendar) is a purely lunar calendar. It contains 12 months that are based on the motion of the moon, and because 12 synodic months is only 12 x 29.53=354.36 days, the Islamic calendar is consistently shorter than a tropical year, and therefore it shifts with respect to the Christian calendar. Years are counted since the Hijra, that is, Mohammed’s emigration to Medina in AD 622.
[3] Inserted on facing page: “Delhi:
Mutiny Road (Fort) Delhi Old Magazine.
Lahore Gate, entrance to the palace.
Diwan-i-am large hall, and the Diwan-i-Khas. Durbar hall, the gold work & pillars are magnificent.
The Motee Musjid & Pearl Mosque are marble.
Queen’s Gardens & museum.
Tablet on a wall inside & near the Kabul gate records Brigadier-General John Nicholson mortally wounded here, 14th Sep’r 1857.
Sketch on spot [sketch inserted here] No. 2 Battery, left armament 9 24-pounders, Major Campbell & subsequently Capt. E.B. Johnson to breach curtain of Cashmere Bastion.”
[4] Inserted on facing page: “Delhi:
(Read ‘On the Face of the Waters’ by Mrs. Steel.)
Tomb of last King of Delhi’s brother & tomb of Zawadin. See photo of diving from the cupulo [sic] – 39 feet – which I ‘snapped’ on the spot.
Hall of the 64 tombs.
King of Delhi taken capture [sic] here & two princes, his sons, killed – shot by Hodson of Hodson’s Horse.
Salzar Jany’s tomb & walled round.
Left Delhi 9 a.m. Sat. 19 Feb’y 1898, Ghaziabad Station EIM railway. Engines by Kitson Leeds & Hawthorne Newcastle.
Cowcatchers on all engines.”
[5] The second Mogul emperor of India.
[6] Inserted on facing page: “Diving” with large cross and arrow pointing to “39” on this page.
[7] A subunit of the Rupee, the Indian currency.