Chapter V: Part 5

[Sidenote: 12. The Lahore Gate, Delhi Fort.] [Sidenote: 13. The Delhi Gate, Delhi Fort.] [Sidenote: 14. The Pearl Mosque, Delhi Fort.] [Sidenote: 15. The Hall of Public Audience, Delhi Fort.] [Sidenote: 16. The Orpheus Panel.] The chief glory of Delhi is, however, the Fort, and the group of palace buildings within its precincts. It is approached through the Lahore Gate, of which we have here a view. This gate is in the middle of the west side of the Fort. Along the east side flows the River Jumna. In the southern face there is another great gateway, the Delhi Gate, with a grey stone elephant on either side of the entry. Within the Fort, is the Moti Masjid, or Pearl Mosque, built by Aurangzeb, of white and grey marble. The finest of the buildings of the Fort is, however, the great Hall of Public Audience, the Diwan-i-Am. There is a raised recess, in the wall of this hall, where formerly stood the famous Peacock Throne of Aurangzeb, made of solid gold inlaid with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, and backed by two peacocks set thick with gems. This throne was carried off when the Persians under Nadir Shah sacked the city in 1739, and massacred most of its inhabitants. Above the entry to the recess of the Peacock Throne are a number of panels about nine inches high and six inches broad, made of inlaid stones. Here is a photograph of one of them. Some of these panels were injured, but, thanks to Lord Curzon, an expert artist from Florence has recently restored them and made new ones in the spirit of the earlier to fill the vacant spaces.

[Sidenote: 17. The Hall of Private Audience, Delhi Fort.] We pass next to the innermost court of the Fort-palace, the Hall of Private Audience, the Diwan-i-Khas, ninety feet long and seventy feet broad, built of white marble with many inlaid flowers of jewels. Beneath the cornice runs the famous inscription: “If there is a Paradise upon earth it is this, it is this.” Here we see one of the graceful arches, and beyond in the distance the towers of the Pearl Mosque, already described.

[Sidenote: 18. Mausoleum of Humayun, Delhi.] To see old Delhi we must drive from the modern city either by the Delhi Gate in the south wall of the Fort or by the Ajmer Gate in the southeast corner of the city wall, past great dome-topped temples, most of them in ruins, until a few miles out, not far from the trunk road leading from Delhi to Agra, we come to the Mausoleum of Humayun, of which we have here a view. The design, as will be realised presently, is very similar to that of the Taj Mahal at Agra, but the Mausoleum is the older building. Notice the terraced platform on which it stands. It is built of red sandstone and marble. Beneath the platform, and approached by a long dark passage, is the vault where Humayun is buried. Around the Mausoleum are a number of old ruins, and the debris and cactus remind one of Pagan in Burma, which we saw in the second lecture.

[Sidenote: 19. The Kutab Minar and Iron Pillar, Delhi.] We resume our drive, past ruined tombs and walls, and at last, about eleven miles south of Delhi, we come to the buildings of the Kutab Minar, where are some of the few remains of the Hindu period now visible in the neighbourhood, though the mass of the work is of Muhammadan date. The Kutab was begun at the end of the 12th century, on the site of an ancient Hindu temple destroyed by the Musulmans. The famous Iron Pillar stands in front of the mosque. It is one of the most remarkable of all the antiquities of India, for it consists of a solid mass of wrought iron, weighing probably more than six tons, and measuring some 24 feet in height, with an average diameter of a little over a foot. At the base is an inscription in Sanskrit, from which it appears that its probable date is the fourth century, A.D. This inscription runs thus: “As long as I stand so long shall the Hindu kingdom endure.” The Kutab mosque is the Moslem reply to this. The wrought iron of the Pillar has an almost bluish colour when seen against the warm sunlit red sandstone of the great Kutab Tower. In this photograph a man has climbed to the top of the Pillar, and stands there as though a statue, giving us the scale of the monument.

[Sidenote: 20. The Lat of Asoka, the Ridge, Delhi.] Now let us visit the district to north of the modern city, of deep interest in connection with the Mutiny. On the Ridge top, between the Flagstaff Tower towards its northeastern end and the Mutiny Memorial further south, is another curious pillar, this one of stone, called the Lat of Asoka. At its base is the following modern inscription:

“This pillar was originally erected at Meerut in the third century B.C. by King Asoka. It was removed thence, and set up in the Koshuk Shikar Palace by the Emperor Firuz Shah in A.D. 1356, but was thrown down and broken into five pieces by the explosion of a powder magazine A.D. 1713-1719. It was restored and set up in this place by the British Government A.D. 1867.”

[Sidenote: 21. The Flagstaff Tower, the Ridge, Delhi.] We will walk past the various memorials of the Mutiny struggle. Here is the Flagstaff Tower, in which were gathered at the outbreak of danger the women and children of the British garrison anxiously looking for relief from Meerut. But the relief did not come, and Delhi was stormed and captured by the mutineers. The refugees in the Flagstaff Tower were compelled to fly for their lives to Karnal, on the road to the Punjab, where gradually British troops and loyal natives were assembled. The British returned to the Ridge, and for two months the siege of the city was pressed, but unsuccessfully. A brigade and a siege train then arrived from the Punjab, commanded by General Nicholson. The struggle continued for yet another month. Our troops were not in sufficient force to surround and starve the city, and it was therefore necessary to bombard and storm the defences. Slowly the British won their way into the town, though with terrible loss. General Nicholson was himself wounded in one of the assaults, and died a week later. At last, on the 20th September, the Fort was taken, and next day the rebel King of Delhi was captured at Humayun’s Tomb, and was exiled to Rangoon. Two of his sons were shot in front of the Delhi Gate. The terrible nature of this siege may be realised from the fact that of the ten thousand British and loyal native troops who took part in it nearly four thousand were killed and wounded. Here is the statue of General Nicholson in the park named after him, just south of the cemetery, outside the Kashmir Gate, where he is buried. On the Ridge itself is the Mutiny Memorial, unfortunately not a very beautiful building.

[Sidenote: 22. General Nicholson’s Statue, Delhi.] [Sidenote: 23. The Mutiny Memorial, the Ridge, Delhi.]

[Sidenote: 24. Horse Fair, Delhi.] [Sidenote: 25. Dariba Street, Delhi.] Finally, we have two scenes of native life at Delhi. The first is a horse fair outside the Kashmir Gate, and the second a street view.

Let us travel to Agra, which stands on the right bank of the Jumna, about a hundred miles southeast of Delhi. The Jumna flows from north to south until beside Agra Fort, and then turns sharply eastward. About a mile and a half further on, on the same right bank, now the south side of the river, there stands the Taj Mahal, the most celebrated of all Muhammadan tombs. The building of Agra Fort was commenced by the Emperor Akbar in the middle of the 16th century, and was completed by Shah Jahan, the father of Aurangzeb, in the 17th century. It was this Shah Jahan who built the Palace within the Fort and also the Taj.

[Sidenote: 26. The Pearl Mosque, Agra Fort.] The Fort and the buildings which it contains rise by the side of the river and dominate the plain beyond it. Here within the Fort we have a view of the marble interior of the Moti Masjid, or Pearl Mosque, built by Shah Jahan in the middle of the 17th century. The floor is divided by inlaid lines of black and yellow marble into some six hundred separate divisions, called Masalas, used by the Musulmans for prayer. In the centre is a large marble tank. The effect produced on entering this mosque is profound. Outside, the city may be quivering in a haze of heat, but here the cool and soft light, and an entire absence of any discordant features in the architecture, combine to give a sense of rest and peace. Many Europeans have remarked that this mosque is a rendering in stone of the text “My house shall be called the house of prayer.”

[Sidenote: 27. Jehangir’s Throne, Agra Fort.] [Sidenote: 28. The Jessamine Tower, Agra Fort.] [Sidenote: 29. The Seat of the Jester, Agra Fort.] Let us go out on to the open space by the wall, and look over the moat which divides the main buildings of the Fort from the outer rampart by the river. Across the water the Taj Mahal can just be seen beyond the bend of the river. In front of us is Jehangir’s throne, set up in the time of Akbar. It consists of a single great slab of black marble. Close by, is the Jessamine Tower. Here we have another view in which we see the Throne from the back and a corner of the Jessamine Tower. Notice the lower slab opposite, which is called the Seat of the Jester. The effect of its presence is by contrast to enhance the beauty of Jehangir’s Throne itself. Between the wall in the foreground and the outer ramparts by the river there is a drop of some sixty feet, and in this ditch fights between lions and elephants used to be held in the days of the Mogul Emperors.

[Sidenote: 30. Jama Masjid, Agra.] Just outside the Fort, facing the west or Delhi Gate, is the Jama Masjid, of which we have here a view. We see the courtyard and one of the entries. The peculiarity of this mosque lies in the structure of the three great domes. They are without necks. We can just see the tops of two of them. They are built of red sandstone, and the encircling bands are of white marble.

[Sidenote: 31. Taj Mahal, Agra.] [Sidenote: 32. The Taj Gardens.] [Sidenote: 33. The Same, by moonlight.] We will now visit the Taj Mahal. It was built, chiefly of marble inlaid with precious stones, by Shah Jahan as a tomb for his queen. Here we have a view of the Taj taken from without the entrance gateway. Then we pass through the gateway and enter the Taj Gardens. The watercourse in the centre is of marble, and along each side is a row of cypresses. The original cypresses had grown to such a height that the view of the Taj was becoming obstructed. They were therefore removed, and those which we see in the picture were planted by Lord Curzon, when he was Viceroy. The Taj is perhaps most beautiful in the light of the setting sun, or by moonlight. We have here a photograph made from a painting of the Taj by moonlight.

[Sidenote: 34. The Bazaar, Agra.] [Sidenote: 35. Agra College.] [Sidenote: 36. Agra Jail—Wool spinning.] [Sidenote: 37. Agra Jail—Carpet making.] We will drive back through the native city. This is a typical scene in the Bazaar. Notice the Kotwal, or Chief of the Police, in the centre of the crowd. He is an Afghan, standing well over six feet in height and finely proportioned. On the awning over one of the shops an advertisement obtrudes, showing that even the native quarters of the cities of India are being permeated with European methods. Here is Agra College, endowed about a century ago by the then Maharaja of Gwalior. There are about a thousand students. Close by is the Jail. In this picture we see some of the prisoners spinning wool, and in the next they are making carpets.

The next series of pictures relates to the great Muhammadan anniversary of the Moharam, and in order to understand them it is necessary to say a few words regarding the history of Islam and the contending sects which have emerged from that history. Muhammad died in the year 632. He left no son; but one of his daughters, Fatima, was married to a cousin whose name was Ali. Abu Bakr, who had been a great friend and supporter of Muhammad, was elected Caliph or Vice-Regent of the Prophet. Abu Bakr died in 634, and was succeeded by Omar, who conquered Persia and Syria. To him Jerusalem capitulated. Omar was murdered in the same year, and was succeeded by Osman, who was killed in 656. Then Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, was elected to the Caliphate. Ali was murdered in 661, and Hasan, his son, was elected Caliph in his place, but was induced to resign in favour of a Caliph of another family. Husain, the second son of Ali, never acknowledged the title of the Caliph who had superseded his brother Hasan, and when the Musulmans of Mesopotamia invited him to overthrow the usurping Caliph he felt it his duty to respond to their appeal. Accompanied by his family and a few retainers he left for Mesopotamia. On the way, at a place called Karbala, on the west bank of the Euphrates, they were overtaken by the Caliph’s army, and after a heroic struggle lasting several days were all slaughtered, save the women and a sickly child called Ali, who died soon afterwards. Thus ended the Republic of Islam. Up to this time the office of Caliph had been elective and the government essentially democratic. The seat of government was now moved from Medina to Damascus.

In the middle of the eighth century of the Christian era a great revolution took place in Western Asia. The revolt was headed by a descendant of Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet, and the outcome of it was that the Abbassides, or members of the family of Abbas, established themselves as Caliphs, and ruled at Bagdad from the year 756 to the year 1258. When Bagdad was destroyed by the Mongols a member of the Abbassides family escaped to Cairo, where he was recognised as Caliph by the Sultan of Egypt. The eighth Caliph in succession from this man renounced the Caliphate in favour of Sultan Salim, the great Ottoman conqueror, and it is on this renunciation that the title of the Sultan of Turkey to the spiritual headship of Islam is based.

It will be seen from this short statement of the history that a great change took place in Islam when Husain, the descendant of the Caliph Ali and of Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, was slain at Karbala, on the Euphrates. From that tragedy dates the chief division of Islam. The Shiah sect traces its foundation to the Caliph Ali and the immediate descendants of the Prophet, who are regarded as the rightful exponents of his teaching. Some twenty millions of the Indian Musulmans are Shiahs, and Shiahism is also the State religion of Persia. There are a large number of Shiahs also in other parts of the Muhammadan world, but nowhere, except in Persia, a majority. The Shiahs are advocates of Apostolic descent and lineal succession to the Caliphate.

The other of the two great divisions of the Musulmans are the Sunnis, who advocate the principle of election to the Caliphate. Almost all the Sunnis acknowledge the spiritual headship of the Sultan of Turkey, who is, of course, repudiated by the Shiahs. At the present time nearly 50 millions of the Musulmans of India are Sunnis, and there are Sunni Musulmans in China, Tartary, Afghanistan, Asiatic and European Turkey, Arabia, Egypt, Northern and Central Africa, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Russia, Ceylon, and the Malay Archipelago.

[Sidenote: 38. Moharam Time at Agra.] [Sidenote: 39. The Same.] [Sidenote: 40. The Same.] [Sidenote: 41. The Same.] [Sidenote: 42. The Same.] [Sidenote: 43. Shiahs burying Tazias.] We are now in a position to understand the significance of the anniversary of the Karbala. Annually there is held in the Muhammadan month Moharam a festival in memory of the death of Husain. The scenes of the battle are reproduced, and the tazia or tomb of Husain is carried in procession amidst cries of “Hasan, Husain!” Properly, this is a Shiah festival only, but in India both the Sunnis and Shiahs take part in it. Here are photographs representing the festival. The tazias are pagoda-like structures, made of a variety of materials. They are carried in long procession through the town, and finally the little biers—representative of the biers of Hasan and Husain—contained inside the tazias are buried at the Karbala, outside the city. We have first a street view in Agra showing the crowd at Moharam time. In the distance is Agra Fort. Next we have three views of the procession of the tazias, and then a view of the Karbala beyond the city, where the biers from the tazias are buried. The Shiahs, however, do not bury their tazias in the Karbala, but on the banks of the Jumna. Here we see them in the early morning conducting the ceremony with most solemn ritual.

[Sidenote: 44. Fields of Wheat and Barley.] [Sidenote: 45. The Public Audience Hall, Fatehpur Sikri.] [Sidenote: 46. The Great Capital, Fatehpur Sikri.] [Sidenote: 47. Gate of Victory, Fatehpur Sikri.] Let us drive out from Agra southwestward on the road to Fatehpur Sikri, the city erected by the Emperor Akbar, but abandoned by his successors in favour of Agra. On the way, we note fields of wheat and barley, separated by an irrigation channel. We pass villages amid mango trees, and occasional ruins, and arrive at Fatehpur Sikri. There we enter the great quadrangle and the Public Audience Hall of the Palace, built of red sandstone. It was in this hall that Akbar used to sit on certain days to see personally anyone who had grievances to lay before him. Notice in the quadrangle the stone pierced with a hole which is fixed in the ground. Criminals were put to death by being trampled upon by an elephant, and to that ring the elephant was tied. We pass on to the Private Audience Hall of Akbar, the Diwan-i-Khas. Note the huge capital of the column in the centre. Tradition says that Akbar used to sit on the top of this capital. Finally, here is the magnificent Gate of Victory.

[Sidenote: 48. Mausoleum of Akbar, Sikandra.] [Sidenote: 49. The Same—a Marble Inscription.] [Sidenote: 50. The Same—the Cloisters.] We leave Fatehpur Sikri, and drive back, past many other tombs, in the direction of the Cantonment at Agra until we come to the burial place of Akbar at Sikandra. This is the gateway of the great Mausoleum. Notice the cut marble inscriptions down the sides of the arch. They are quotations from the Koran. Here is a clearer photograph of a part of these inscriptions, and here we have the marble court above the tomb of Akbar. Round the Cloisters are verses celebrating his greatness. “Think not that the sky will be so kind as Akbar was,” is the tenor of one of them.

[Sidenote: 51. Hariki Piri, Hardwar.] [Sidenote: 52. Sarwan Nath Temple, Hardwar.] [Sidenote: 53. The Same, from above.] [Sidenote: 54. Camels at Hardwar.]

Finally we will travel away to Hardwar, some two hundred miles due north of Agra. It is on the Ganges, at the point where the river leaves the last foot hills of the Himalayas and enters the plain. Hardwar is a great centre of Hindu pilgrimage for the purpose of ablution in the sacred waters. At the annual fair are gathered hundreds of thousands of worshippers. So great has been the crush of people endeavouring to bathe that on occasion many have been trampled upon and drowned. The great day at Hardwar is towards the end of March, when the Hindu year begins, and when, according to tradition, the Ganges river first appeared from its source in the mountains. There was a town of Hardwar more than a thousand years ago, but its ancient buildings have disappeared. Here we have a view of the famous Bathing Ghat, a comparatively small flight of steps, where the river is considered to be specially sacred. The water is purer than at Benares in the plain. It flows swiftly and is as clear as crystal. Near by we have a temple, the Sarwan Nath, with great stone elephants, and here is a second view of the same temple seen from a neighbouring roof. Notice the Trisul, or bronze trident, the typical weapon of Siva, the Destroyer.

[Sidenote: 55. Sacred Cow at Hardwar.] Here is a string of camels at Hardwar, and then a sacred cow—especially sacred because deformed, for a freak of nature is miraculous.

[Sidenote: 56. The Road to Mussoorie.] [Sidenote: 57. The Same, Coolies carrying Baggage.] [Sidenote: 58. The Same, a Tree across the Road.] [Sidenote: 59. Mussoorie.] [Sidenote: 60. The Himalayas from Mussoorie.] Not far northward of Hardwar, among the foot hills of the Himalayas, is Mussoorie, a hill station supplementary to Simla. Mussoorie is about a mile above sea level. We have two views taken on the steep mountain road up to it; the second shows coolies carrying baggage. In the next view we realise something of the difficulties of travel in these hill districts of much rainfall, for the road is blocked by the fall of a great tree. Here we have a view of Mussoorie itself, and then the landscape from Mussoorie looking towards the Himalayan ranges to the north. Close by, but lower down, is Dehra Dun, the headquarters of the Gurkha Rifles, enlisted from Nepal, and also of the Imperial Cadet Corps, a small training force consisting wholly of the sons of ruling chiefs. We shall hear of the Gurkhas again in connection with the defences of India, which will be the subject of the next and concluding lecture of this Course.

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LECTURE VIII.

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=THE NORTHWEST FRONTIER.=

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THE SIKHS.

In the British Empire there is but one land frontier on which warlike preparation must ever be ready. It is the Northwest Frontier of India. True that there is another boundary, even longer, drawn across the American Continent, but there, fortunately, only customs houses are necessary and an occasional police guard. The Northwest Frontier of India, on the other hand, lies through a region whose inhabitants have been recruited throughout the ages by invading warlike races. Except for the Gurkha mountaineers of Nepal, the best soldiers of the Indian Army are derived from the northwest, from the Rajputs, the Sikhs, the Punjabi Musulmans, the Dogra mountaineers north of the Punjab, and the Pathan mountaineers west of the Punjab. The provinces along the frontier, and the Afghan land immediately beyond it, are the one region in all India from which, under some ambitious lead, the attempt might be made to establish a fresh imperial rule by the overthrow of the British Raj. It would not be the freedom of India which would ensue, but an oriental despotism and race domination from the northwest. Such is the teaching of history, and such the obvious fate of the less warlike peoples of India, should the power of Britain be broken either by warfare on the spot, or by the defeat of our navy. Beyond the northwest frontier, moreover, at a greater or less distance are the continental Powers of Europe.

[Sidenote: 1. Political Map of Northwest India.] The Indian army and the Indian strategical railways are therefore organized with special reference to the belt of territory, extending from northeast to southwest, which lies beyond the Indian desert and is traversed from end to end by the Indus River. This frontier belt divides naturally into two parts. Inland we have the Punjab, where the rivers, emerging from their mountain valleys, gradually close together through the plain to form the single stream of the lower Indus; seaward we have Sind, where the Indus divides into distributaries forming a delta. Sind, as already stated, is a part of the Bombay Province, with which it is connected by sea from the Port of Karachi. Of late a railway has been constructed from Ahmadabad in the main territory of Bombay, across the southern end of the Desert, to Hyderabad at the head of the Indus delta. The Punjab is a separate Province with its own Lieutenant-Governor resident at Lahore. It was conquered from the Sikhs by a British army based on Delhi, and therefore ultimately on Calcutta.

[Sidenote: 2. Map of Lower Asia.] To understand the significance of the Northwest Frontier of India we must look far beyond the immediate boundaries of the Empire. We have here a map of Lower Asia. Upon it we see a broad tract of upland which, commencing in Asia Minor, extends through Armenia and Persia to include Baluchistan and Afghanistan. There is thus one continuous belt of plateau stretching from Europe to the boundary of India. The eastern end of this belt, that is to say, Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan, is known as Iran. On all sides save the northwest and the northeast, the Iranian plateau descends abruptly to lowlands or to the sea. Southward and southwestward lie the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf, and the long lowland which is traversed by the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Northward, to the east of the Caspian Sea, is the broad lowland of Turkestan, traversed by the Rivers Oxus and Jaxartes, draining into the Sea of Aral. Eastward is the plain of the Indus. The defence of India from invasion depends in the first place on the maintenance of British sea power in the Persian Gulf and along the south coast of Baluchistan, and in the second place on our refusal to allow the establishment of alien bases of power on the Iranian plateau, especially on those parts of it which lie towards the south and east.

[Sidenote: 3. Map of the Northwest Frontier.] In the next map we have on a larger scale the detail of that part of Iran which lies nearest to India. Here we see, west of the Punjab, a great triangular mass of mountain ridges which splay out westward and southward from the northeast. These ridges and the intervening valleys constitute Afghanistan. Flowing from the Afghan valleys we have on the one hand the Kabul river, which descends eastward to the Indus, and, on the other hand, the greater river Helmund, which flows southwestward into the depressed basin of Seistan, where it divides into many channels, forming as it were an inland delta from which the waters are evaporated by the hot air, for there is no opening to the sea. The valley of the Kabul river on the one hand, and the oasis of Seistan on the other, might in the hands of an enemy become bases wherein to prepare the invasion of India. Therefore, without annexing this intricate and difficult upland, we have declared it to be the policy of Britain to exclude from Afghanistan and from Seistan all foreign power.

Further examination of the map will show that there are two lines, and only two, along which an invasion of India might be conducted. On the one hand, the mountains become very narrow just north of the head of the Kabul River. There in fact a single though lofty ridge, the Hindu Kush, is all that separates the basin of the Oxus from that of the Indus. As we see from the map, low ground is very near on the two sides of the Hindu Kush. The way into India over the passes of the Hindu Kush is known as the Khyber route, from the name of the last defile by which the track descends into the Indian Plain.

If we now look some five hundred miles to the southwest of Kabul, we see that the Afghan mountains come suddenly to an end, and that a pathway leads round their fringe from Herat to the Indus Basin, passing along the border of Seistan. From Herat to beyond Kandahar, this way lies over an upland plain and is easy, but the last part of the journey is through a mountainous district down to the lowland of the Indus. This is the Bolan route, so called from the last gorge towards India. It will be noticed that the Bolan route debouches upon the Indus opposite to the great Indian Desert. Therefore it is that the Khyber route has been the more frequented. It leads directly between the desert and the mountain foot, upon the inner gateway of India at Delhi.

We conquered the Punjab from the Sikhs, but for many centuries it had been ruled by the Musulmans. In the break up of the Mogul Empire invaders had come, during the eighteenth century, from Persia and from Afghanistan, who carried devastation even as far as Delhi. Thus it was that with relative ease the Sikhs as contemporaries of the Marathas established a dominion in the helpless Punjab. They extended their rule also into the mountains of Kashmir, north of Lahore.

Let us commence our survey of the northwest at Dehra Dun, which is placed in a mountain valley among the foot hills of the Himalayas, not far from the hill station of Mussoorie, of which we heard in the last lecture. Then from Dehra Dun we will travel two hundred miles northwestward, crossing the Beas, one of the five rivers of the Punjab, to Amritsar, the holy city of the Sikhs. Fifty miles west of Amritsar, on the Ravi, another of the Indus tributaries, is Lahore, the traditional capital of the Punjab. From Lahore onward we traverse irrigated strips of fertile ground, with sandy plains intervening, with a scanty herbage for a few camels. Then follows a broken and more desolate country in the north of the Punjab. So we come to the Indus itself, and beyond this, nearly three hundred miles from Lahore, to the military station of Peshawar, the last Indian city on the great track leading northwestward from Calcutta, through Allahabad and Delhi. Not far from Peshawar is the Khyber Pass.

The Khyber is protected by its own hill tribes. We have enlisted them on the side of law and order by enrolling them into military forces, just as the Scottish Highlanders were enrolled in the British army in the 18th century.

Then leaving Peshawar we will visit Quetta, some five hundred miles southwestward, and see there the second great centre of British force on the Frontier. It has been established to command the Bolan route to Kandahar and Herat. The whole army in India is organised with reference to these two points, Peshawar and Quetta, or in other words, the Khyber and the Bolan. There are many other passes in the frontier mountains, but they offer merely loopways from the two main routes.

[Sidenote: 4. 12th Bengal Infantry.] [Sidenote: 5. Bombay Mountain Battery.] [Sidenote: 6. Heavy Battery in Elephant Draught.] The Indian forces are now grouped into a Northern and a Southern army. The Northern army is distributed southeastward from Peshawar past Delhi and Allahabad to Calcutta, so that all the forces along that long line may be regarded as supporting the brigades on the Khyber front. The Southern army is similarly posted for the reinforcement of Quetta. It is distributed in the Bombay Presidency and immediately around. The conditions of the defence of India have of course been vitally changed by the construction of the Northwestern Railway from the port of Karachi through the Indus basin, with its two branches towards the Bolan and the Khyber. To-day that defence could be conducted over the seas directly from Britain through Karachi, so that the desert of Rajputana would lie between the defending forces and the main community of India within.

[Sidenote: 7. 18th P. W. Tiwana Horse.] [Sidenote: 8. Gurkha Rifles: Physical Drill.] [Sidenote: 9. The Same—Bayonet Practice.] [Sidenote: 10. 32nd Mountain Battery, Advancing Down Hill.] [Sidenote: 11. The Same—Retiring Up Hill.] [Sidenote: 12. Battery in Action.] As we start for Dehra Dun let us stop for a moment on the ridge at Delhi to see a squadron of the 18th Prince of Wales’s Tiwana Horse, recruited partly from among the Sikhs and partly from the Musulmans. Then at Dehra Dun we have the Gurkha Rifles. We see them at physical drill and then at bayonet practice. At the same place we visit a battery of Mountain Artillery, for Dehra Dun is in the Terai, at the foot of the Himalayas. Mountain batteries are much utilised in operations over the broken and hilly country towards the Northwest Frontier. The men are Punjabis; and it will be noticed that the guns are carried by mules. Here we see the battery advancing down hill, and here we see it retiring up hill. Then we have a mountain gun in action.

From Dehra Dun we proceed to Amritsar, the chief centre of the Sikh religion, which resulted from a reformation of Hinduism in the middle of the fifteenth century. It is therefore modern indeed as compared with the parent religion itself. The Sikhs abandoned idolatry, and also distinctions of caste. The word Sikh means “disciple.” In their origin a religious sect, the Sikhs developed into a powerful military commonwealth, which rose to great position in the Punjab and surrounding lands as the Mogul strength decayed at Delhi. The Sikhs only succumbed to the British after two wars, fought in 1846 and 1849, which were among the severest in the whole history of British India. Yet they remained loyal during the Mutiny.

[Sidenote: 13. The Causeway and the Golden Temple, Amritsar.] [Sidenote: 14. The Golden Temple, Amritsar.] [Sidenote: 15. The Akal Bungah, Amritsar.] The Emperor Akbar granted to the Sikhs a site for their capital by the shore of a sacred tank, and this capital, Amritsar, has now grown to be a city of over 150,000 inhabitants, the third most wealthy and populous of the Punjab. It is surpassed only by Delhi and Lahore, and Delhi has been included in the Punjab only in recent times, and for convenience of administration. In this view we see the famous Golden Temple, built in the centre of the sacred tank. The bridge across the water leading to the entry is of marble. The doors of the gateway are of silver without, and on the inner side of wood inlaid with ivory. The lower part of the walls of the temple itself are of white marble inlaid with jaspar and mother-of-pearl, but the upper part is plated with gilded copper. In the middle of the temple, under a canopy, is the Grant Sahib, the sacred book of the Sikhs, covered with a cloth of gold. Here we have another view of the Golden Temple seen across the tank, and behind it is the Clock Tower. Opposite the chief entry to the temple is a square surrounded by public buildings, of which the most important is the Akal Bungah, wherein are performed the ceremonies of initiation and investiture of the Sikhs.

[Sidenote: 16. School of Sikh and Hindu Children.] [Sidenote: 17. Street Scene, Amritsar.] [Sidenote: 18. Street Conjurer, Amritsar.] A few scenes follow showing phases of life at Amritsar. Here we see a part of the tesselated pavement which surrounds the sacred tank, and a school of Hindu and Sikh children. Next is a street scene showing the gateway leading to another sacred tank, and here is a conjurer with a cobra entwined about his neck. Amritsar has to-day become an important manufacturing city. From raw materials brought by the Khyber route, from the central Asian markets, are here manufactured shawls of the famous Kashmir design, and also fine silks, embroideries, carpets, carvings, and metal work of various kinds.

[Sidenote: 19. Lahore, from roof of Shish Mahal.] [Sidenote: 20. West Gate, Jama Masjid, Lahore.] Let us now go on to Lahore, the ancient and the modern capital of the Punjab. Here is a view taken from the roof of the Shish Mahal, or Palace of Mirrors, in the Fort of Lahore, looking towards the southwest, over the Jama Masjid, towards the River Ravi, on whose left bank the city stands. Next is seen the fine west gate of the Jama Masjid, a mosque built by the Emperor Aurangzeb, which contains relics of Muhammad.

[Sidenote: 21. Zamzamah, Lahore.] [Sidenote: 22. Sarai, Lahore.] [Sidenote: 23. The Same, showing Wazir Khan’s House.] [Sidenote: 24. Old Houses, Lahore.] Do you remember “Kim” in Rudyard Kipling’s book? We have in this view the Zamzamah, the old gun under the tree on which Kim sat in the first chapter. Astride on its muzzle is an urchin, just like what Kim must have been. Here is the Sarai, a quadrangle about sixty yards square, with round arched verandahs on all sides. Note the well in the centre. Next is the actual house where Wazir Khan, Kipling’s Mahbub Ali, used to sleep. Beyond may be seen horses brought for sale. The Sarai belongs to-day to the Maharaja of Kashmir, who obtains a revenue from the fees paid by the horsedealers using it. Near by we have a busy street scene, showing old houses belonging to Hindu merchants.

[Sidenote: 25. The Court of Justice, Lahore.] [Sidenote: 26. Mayo School of Art, Lahore.] [Sidenote: 27. The same—Wood-working.] [Sidenote: 28. The Same—Metal-working.] [Sidenote: 29. Statuette of Buddha.] At Lahore there are a number of really handsome modern buildings. We have in this view the Court of Justice, situated in the chief street, the Mall. Next is the fine building of the Lahore School of Art, showing students sketching out of doors, and then a number of Punjabis in the wood-working room of the school. Here is the metal-working department. At the back of the room some senior students are finishing a large lamp in hammered brass-work, which was afterwards exhibited in London. The Lahore Museum, a corner of which we saw just now in the view of the “Kim” gun, is another fine building, containing among other curiosities a statuette of Buddha after his forty-nine days’ fast, excavated at Sikri near Peshawar. This statuette, some three feet high and two feet broad, is one of the finest examples of ancient sculpture found in India. It is carved with extreme delicacy and refinement, and is supposed to date back to about the first century of the Christian era.

[Sidenote: 30. Bridge of Boats over the Ravi, near Lahore.] [Sidenote: 31. Jehangir’s tomb.] We will drive out from Lahore to the west of the city on the high road to Peshawar. We pass the Musulman cemetery and the Hindu burning ground, and then reach the banks of the Ravi. A bridge of boats crosses the river a little below the railway bridge. Here we turn aside from the Peshawar road and reach Shahdara, where is the tomb of the Emperor Jehangir. In this picture we have a close view of part of it, showing the inlaid marble. Near by is the ruined tomb of Jehangir’s wife, Nur Jehan. It was probably never finished, and has been neglected.

[Sidenote: 32. Edwardes Gate, Peshawar.] [Sidenote: 33. Kissa Kahani, Peshawar.] [Sidenote: 34. Police Station, Peshawar.] [Sidenote: 35. Silk Market, Peshawar.] [Sidenote: 36. In the Silk Market, Peshawar.] From Lahore we travel by the Northwestern Railway to Peshawar, a distance of nearly three hundred miles. Peshawar, as we have already learned, is the most important garrison city on the Northwest Frontier, and the capital of the recently created Northwest Frontier Province. It has about a hundred thousand inhabitants, chiefly Musulmans. Here we see the Edwardes Gate, with its fine pointed arch, and passing through it we enter the Kissa Kahani, the Lombard Street of Peshawar. The Edwardes Gate may be seen from within at the end of the street. Here is the Kotwali, or Police Station, and just within the gateway of the Kotwali is the Silk Market. Peshawar is a most important commercial centre on the great road from Samarkand and Bokhara in Central Asia, through Kabul and the Khyber, to Lahore and Delhi. In the bazaar we find representatives of many Asiatic races. Here we see skeins of Chinese silk, red and white and yellow, hung out in the sun to dry after being dyed. Near by are the stalls of bankers and money-changers, which are sometimes raided by the wild tribesmen visiting Peshawar from the neighbourhood of the Khyber Pass.

[Sidenote: 37. Ghor Khatri, Peshawar.] [Sidenote: 38. Peshawar from the Ghor Khatri, looking north.] [Sidenote: 39. The Same, looking west.] In the northeastern corner of Peshawar is the famous Ghor Khatri, which stands on a piece of rising ground commanding a fine view over the whole city. Here is a part of the building, with a bullock cart in front. The Ghor Khatri was successively a Buddhist Monastery and a Hindu temple, and is now used as municipal offices and as the official residence of the agents of the Ameer of Afghanistan when they visit Peshawar. We climb to the roof and look upon the city beneath. A second view is in the direction of Jamrud and the Khyber.

[Sidenote: 40. Gymnastic Class, Government High School, Peshawar.] [Sidenote: 41. Lowest Class, same School.] Here in Peshawar, on the very border of British rule, it is interesting to see the progress of western education. This is the Government High School. A class is in the playground under gymnastic instruction. The boys are mostly Musulmans, though a few Hindus may be distinguished by their caps in the place of turbans. This is the lowest class of the school, and is being taught reading and writing by a native master. Notice that the boys’ shoes have been taken off.

[Sidenote: 42. Jamrud.] [Sidenote: 43. Khyber Rifles drilling.] [Sidenote: 44. Khyber Rifles marching.] [Sidenote: 45. Zakka Khel Afridis.] [Sidenote: 46. The Sarai, Jamrud.] [Sidenote: 47. Caravan, near Jamrud.] [Sidenote: 48. Ali Masjid.] [Sidenote: 49. Ali Masjid, nearer view.] [Sidenote: 50. A Subadar, 59th Sind Rifles.] Jamrud, at the immediate entrance to the Khyber, lies some nine miles west of Peshawar. Here is a distant view of it from the Peshawar road. To the right can just be seen the Fort, and to the left Jamrud Village. Next we see a company of the Khyber Rifles, photographed at Jamrud, and here the same company marching. By way of striking contrast, are a group of the Zakka Khel Afridis in their native dress. They are the raw material from which the Khyber Riflemen are made. Typical wild tribesmen of the hills, they have been enlisted in the British Army to keep them out of mischief, and also to assist in repelling raids by their fellow-tribesmen, who continue to dwell amid the hill fastnesses of the region. The Afridis, of whom the Zakka Khel is a clan, seem perfectly well content, provided that there is fighting, which they love for its own sake. Here we see the Sarai at Jamrud, where all caravans going into India or returning to Central Asia halt for the night. The men in this picture are mostly Kabulis, with long-haired Bactrian camels from Central Asia, stronger and finer than the Indian species. These camels are laden with tea, sugar, and general supplies. Outside Jamrud we see a caravan of Indian camels taking stores back to Peshawar after operations in the Khyber against the hill tribes. Beyond Jamrud the road enters the Khyber, with the sweeping curve seen in this view. The Fort of Ali Masjid, nearly three thousand feet above sea level, crowns a steeply sloping hill on the crest of the path between Jamrud and Landi Kotal, where begins the descent into Afghanistan. Here is a nearer view, with the tents of an expeditionary force at the foot of the Fort. It shows the continuation of the way in the direction of Landi Kotal. Notice how steep are the cliffs and how narrow the Pass at this point. Beneath the Fort, in the face of the hill, are seen caves in which dwell during the winter months the wild clan known as the Kuchi Khel. Finally, we have a portrait, painted in the camp at Ali Masjid, of Nasar Khan, a Subadar, or native officer, of the 59th Sind Rifles.

We now leave the Khyber region and, following the Indus for some six hundred miles, we travel southward through a land which was not very long ago a desert. To-day, as the result of a great investment of British capital, irrigation works have changed the whole aspect of the country. The provinces of the Punjab and Sind have hitherto been regarded as significant chiefly in relation to the defence of the Northwest Frontier of India. They have now no less importance when considered in their economic development. The plain of the Indus has become one of the chief wheatfields of the British Empire, for wheat is the principal crop in the Punjab, in parts of Sind, and outside the basin of the Indus itself, in the districts of the United Provinces which lie about Agra. The wheat production of India on an average of years is five times as great as that of the United Kingdom, and about half as great as that of the United States. In one recent year at least, the export of wheat from India to the United Kingdom has exceeded that from the United States to the United Kingdom.

The brown waste of the plains of the Punjab becomes after the winter rains a waving sea of green wheat extending over thousands of square miles. Cultivation now spreads far beyond the area within which the rainfall alone suffices. The lower Punjab and the central strip of Sind have been converted into a second Egypt. Though the navigation of the Indus is naturally inferior to that of the Ganges, yet communication has been maintained by boat from the Punjab to the sea from Greek times downward. The Indus flotilla of steamboats has, however, suffered fatally from the competition of the Northwestern Railway, and the wheat exported from Karachi is now almost wholly rail-borne.

[Sidenote: 51. The Lansdowne Bridge.] [Sidenote: 52. The Same.] [Sidenote: 53. Khwaja Khizir Island.] Running southward through the fertile strip, not very far from the left or western bank of the river, the railway leaves the Punjab and enters Sind. At Rohri, one of the hottest places in all India in the summer time, a line branches northwestward to Quetta and Chaman, on the frontier of Afghanistan. Sukkur stands opposite to Rohri on the right bank of the river, and the Lansdowne Railway Bridge between these two towns is perhaps the most remarkable bridge in India. It was built between 1887 and 1889, and about three thousand tons of steel and iron were employed in its construction. It is eight hundred and forty feet in length, with two magnificent spans. We see in this slide a view of the Rohri end of it, taken from Suttian, an old nunnery founded for women who preferred seclusion rather than the funeral pyre. The Hindu custom was to burn the wife or wives with the husband’s body, until the British Government intervened to prevent the practice. One end of the town of Rohri, with its tall grey wattle and daub buildings, can be seen under the bridge. A train is upon the bridge, and in front are some Pala fishers, sailing on metal chatties into which they put the fish as they catch them. This is another view of the bridge seen from Rohri itself. We are here in the very heart of the rainless region. During twelve years there have only been six showers at Rohri! A great engineering scheme is now under consideration for damming the Indus near this point so as to raise the level of the water in the upper reaches of the river. In this manner the irrigation canals would be fed not only in time of flood, as at present, but in the dry season as well. Near Rohri, in the middle of the Indus channel, is Khwaja Khizir Island, on which stands an ancient Hindu temple. In the foreground of the picture near the water’s edge are Sindi boatmen mending their sails.

From Sukkur, passing through Shikarpur and Jacobabad, the railway traverses the desert to the foot of the hills, and then ascends to Quetta either by the Mashkaf—the actual line of the Bolan having been abandoned—or by a longer loop line, the Harnai, which runs to the Peshin valley. The latter is the usual way. By the Mashkaf route the line is carried over a boulder-strewn plain about half a mile broad in the bottom of a gorge with steeply rising heights on either side. Here and there the strip of lower ground is trenched and split by deep canyons. At first the line follows the Mashkaf river, and the gradients are not very severe, but once Hirok, at the source of the Bolan river is passed, a gradient of one in twenty-five begins, and two powerful engines are required to drag the train up. The steep bounding ridges now close in on either side with cliffs rising almost perpendicularly to several hundred feet. Occasional block-houses high up amid the crags defend the Pass.

[Sidenote: 54. The Chappar Rift.] [Sidenote: 55. The Same.] The gradients of the Harnai route are not quite so steep as those of the Mashkaf. Should either way be blocked or carried away by landslips or floods the other would be available. The Harnai line passes through the Chappar Rift, a precipitous gorge in a great mass of limestone. In this view we are approaching the Rift from Mangi, and then we have a view looking back from the middle of the Rift. As will be seen, the railway runs across high bridges and through tunnels in the mountain masses.

[Sidenote: 56. Native Bazaar, Quetta.] Quetta occupies a very important strategical position, about a mile above sea level, in the midst of a small plain surrounded by great mountain ridges rising to a height of two miles and more. Irrigation works have been constructed in the Quetta plain, which is now an oasis among desert mountains, and has a population of some thirty thousand, including many Afghans. The Agent General for British Baluchistan resides there. The town, with its outposts, is of course very strongly fortified, commanding as it does the railways leading southeastward to the Indus, and the Khojak Pass leading northwestward to Chaman and Kandahar. Here we have a scene in the native bazaar, with Hindus performing a festival dance.

[Sidenote: 57. Street in Chaman.] From Quetta the railway is carried northwestward, through the Khojak tunnel, for another hundred and twenty miles to Chaman on the frontier, where is a British outpost. Here is a street in Chaman, with two old Pathans. Chaman is at present the terminus of the railway. The material is, however, kept ready for its continuation, in case of need, to Kandahar, in Afghanistan, seventy miles further. From Kandahar through Herat to the rail-head of the Russian Trans-Caspian Railway is some four hundred miles. By this route, did circumstances allow, a connection might be made, giving through railway communication between Europe and India.

[Sidenote: 58. The Proclamation of the Queen-Empress at the Delhi Durbar, 1st Jan., 1877.] At this last outpost of British Power we complete our journey through the great Indian Empire. It was with no intention of Empire that a few London merchants formed themselves into an East India Company in the days of Queen Elizabeth. It was with no great force of white soldiers that the conquest was in after centuries effected, but by the organisation of Indian strength in a time of disorder, due to the downfall of the Mogul Empire at Delhi. Province was added to province under the British Raj of no set design and ambition, but for defensive reasons under the threat of French or Maratha or Sikh rivalry. In the great Mutiny the system of power and administration, thus upbuilt almost casually, was tested, and it survived the test, but with a fundamental change. The East India Company was dissolved, and the British Government made itself directly responsible for peace and order in the Indian Continent. The proclamation by which Queen Victoria assumed the rule of India solemnly promised that in the administration of the country due regard should be paid to the ancient rights, usages, and customs of India. The change which was made in 1858, after the Mutiny, was completed in 1877, when at a great durbar of the princes of India, held at Delhi, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India.

[Sidenote: 59. The Same.] The British Raj in India is an organisation unparalleled in history, for the Roman Empire consisted of provinces grouped round the Imperial City, but Britain is a quarter of the globe removed from India. Our power ultimately rests on our command of the seas and on the justice of our administration. When either of these fail, the British position in India will crumble. Within our duty of justice is included the generous but firmly-directed readjustment of the methods of Indian government, so as to adapt them to the now changing conditions of oriental society.