The Kootûb, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1838.
Well, of all the things I ever saw, I think this is the finest. Did we
know about it in England? I mean, did you and I, in our old ancient
Briton state, know? Do you know now, without my telling you, what the
Kootûb is? Don't be ashamed, there is no harm in not knowing, only I do
say it is rather a pity we were so ill taught. I have had so many odd
names dinned into me during the countless years I seem to have passed in
this country, that I cannot remember the exact degree of purity of mind
(which enemies may term ignorance) with which I left home; but after all
that had been said, I expected the Kootûb would have been rather
inferior to the Monument. One has those little prejudices. It happens
to be the Monument put at the top of the column in the Place Vendôme,
and that again placed on a still grander base. It is built of beautiful
red granite, is 240 feet high and 50 feet in diameter, and carved all
over with sentences from the Koran, each letter a yard high, and the
letter again interlaced and ornamented with carved flowers and garlands;
it is between six and seven hundred years old, and looks as if it were
finished yesterday, and it stands in a wilderness of ruins, carved
gateways, and marble tombs, one more beautiful than the other.
They say that the man who built it meant it for one minaret of a
mosque--a mosque, you are to understand, always possessing two minarets
and three domes. But as some say Kootûb himself built this, and others
say that a particular Emperor called Alexander II. has the merit of it,
and as nobody knows whether there ever were a Kootûb or an Alexander
II., I think it is just possible that we do not know what a man who
never was born meant to make of a building that never was built. As it
stands it is perfect. We went at six this morning to see a well into
which divers are so good as to jump from the height of sixty feet. They
seem to fly almost in the air, till they nearly reach the water, and
then they join their feet together and go down straight, and the water
closes over them. But they come up again, do not be afraid.
We had dispatched all our sights before seven, and had two hours' good
sketching before breakfast, and now it is as hot as ever I felt it in
Bengal.
Delhi, Friday, Feb. 25.
Yesterday morning we found there was so much to do and to finish, that
we settled to stay on here till Saturday, and to commit the sin for the
first time of marching on Sunday, as we have not a day to spare. The
heir-apparent of Delhi has been coaxed or threatened into waiting on G.,
so there was a second durbar to be held to-day, and when it came to the
time, the prince had taken to his bed, and had sent for thirteen doctors
to say he was too ill to come. However, he changed his mind again and
came, and in the meanwhile, half our troops who were out for the durbar
were fainting away from the heat. In the afternoon G. had to go and
return the visits of the rajahs in the neighbourhood, and we went to see
Humayun's tomb, about six miles off, where we meant to sketch till G.
came, but it turned out a failure after all we had heard of it.
However, there were some beautiful white marble tombs in the
neighbourhood, carved like lace; and then we went to another well, or
rather tank, entirely surrounded by mosques and buildings, on the roofs
of which divers were all waiting to jump. We implored and begged they
would not take us for the Lord Sahib, and take the fatal plunge in our
honour, and the guards went and pushed the crowds off, and declared the
Lord Sahib was coming, and we sat down and sketched, and at last, just
as we were giving him up, he and all his people arrived, and the divers
all bounded off. Some of them jumped from a height of eighty feet,
clearing several buildings in their way. It is much the most curious
sight I have seen, and I now cannot guess why they did not tumble head
over heels twenty times before they reached the water. In the evening we
went to a nautch at Colonel Skinner's. His house is fitted up in the
native fashion, and he had all the best singers and dancers in Delhi,
and they acted passages out of Vishnu and Brahma's lives, and sang
Persian songs which I thought made a very ugly noise; but Mr. B., who
speaks Persian as fluently as English, kept saying, 'Well, this is
really delightful--this I think is equal to any European singing--in
fact, there is nothing like it.'
There _is_ nothing like it that I ever heard before, but certainly the
words, as he translated them, were very pretty. One little fat nautch
girl sang a sort of passionate song to G. with little meaning smiles,
which I think rather attracted his lordship, and I thought it might be
too much for him if I forwarded to him Mr. B.'s translation. 'I am the
body, you are the soul: we may be parted here, but let no one say we
shall be separated hereafter. My father has deserted me; my mother is
dead; I have no friends. My grave is open, and I look into it; but do
you care for me?' The dancing is very slow and very dull, but the
dresses and ornaments are beautiful.
Saturday, Feb. 26.
We had a melancholy catastrophe last night. There has been a great deal
of pilfering in the camp the two last days, which has been the case with
every great camp near Delhi, and our people were unluckily more awake
than usual. A thief was seen running off with one of the servants'
cooking pots, and pursued. A syce of Mr. T. caught hold of him. The
thief turned round and stuck his knife into the man and killed him on
the spot. He was dead before they could even fetch Dr. D. The thief is
taken, but nobody is ever hanged in this country. Mr. T., who has been
agent here for twenty-two years, takes it as a personal affront that we
should have been robbed in his district, though I should have thought
the affront lay the other way.
Paniput, Feb. 28.
Delhi turned out a very unwholesome place. All the servants have been
taken with attacks of fever and sickness; the sudden hot days after the
cold weather disagree with them. Our camp has grown much larger. There
are more hangers-on. Mrs. ---- has taken charge of a little niece and two
nephews who lost their mother suddenly, and she is taking them up to the
hills--I never saw such sickly little things. I see another little
European girl every morning on the line of march, who has evidently
nobody but bearers to take charge of her, probably going up to a school
at Mussoorie, where parents who are too poor to send children home now
send them. I forget whether I told you a story Mr. T. told me about the
way in which children travel here, and which strikes me as very
shocking, and would probably strike you more. I believe I have told it
to you twice already in hopes of making your motherly hair stand on end.
He said a palanquin was brought to his house containing three little
children--a little girl nine years old and two smaller brothers. They
were going up to Mussoorie, had been travelling three days, and had
about a week's more journey. They had not even their names written on a
piece of paper, or a note to the magistrates of the district, but were
just passed on from one set of bearers to the other. You know the
bearers are changed every eight miles like so many post horses, and it
constantly happens on a dâk journey that the bearers get tired, or the
fresh set are not at their posts, and the palanquin is put down on the
road and the traveller left to help himself. The bearers who brought
these children to Mr. T.'s, said they thought the children were tired,
and so they had brought them to an European house for a rest. Mr. T. had
them washed and dressed, and fed them and kept them half a day, when he
was obliged to send them away for fear they should lose their dâk. He
said they were very shy, and would hardly speak, but he made out their
names and gave them notes to other magistrates, and some months
afterwards he saw them at school at Mussoorie; but it is an odd way of
sending children to school. I should like to see you packing off your
three youngest boys for the chances of these naked half savages taking
them and feeding them and looking after them on the road, without even a
servant to attend to them.
When we came into camp this morning we found Mr. ----, whose turn it had
been to come on with the guard of honour, perfectly desperate. His tent
had been entirely stripped in the night, he and his bearers remaining in
a profound sleep while the thieves cut entirely away one side of the
tent, and carried off over his head a large camel-trunk and all his
other boxes, with his sword, gun, and pistols. It was a sad loss for a
poor lieutenant in the army, but luckily the police recovered most of
his things in the course of the day, except, as he says with a most
sentimental sigh, 'a few rings of no value in themselves, but of value
to _me_, and a few _chits_.' The magistrate, Mr. ----, treats with the
greatest contempt the idea of recovering any sentimental goods. 'I
assure you,' he says, 'the dacoits at _Pannyput_ have no idea of
sentiment.' Probably not--but that does not console Lieut. ---- for the
loss of his _chits_.
Kurnaul, March 2.
We arrived here yesterday; a great ugly scattered cantonment, all
barracks, and dust, and guns, and soldiers; and G. had a levée in the
morning, and we were 'at home' in the evening; and the officers of four
regiments, with their wives and daughters, all came and danced. The
fashions are even again behind those of Delhi. Mrs. V. appeared in a
turban made I think of stamped tin moulded into two fans, from which
descended a long _pleureuse_ feather floating over some very full
sleeves. Mrs. Z. did not aspire to anything fanciful, but was simply
attired in a plain coloured gown made of a very few yards of sarcenet.
We are going to dine with the General to-day--a dinner of sixty people.
Yesterday as we were stepping over the street to luncheon, there
appeared an interesting procession of tired coolies carrying boxes--our
English boxes that had come plodding after us from Allahabad. I was in
hopes Mr. D.'s bonnets would have come out of one of them, but we heard
in the evening that they are at least a month off, and in the meantime
the unpacking of these was immense fun. There were two boxes of books,
and I had just come to an end of the last set, and now there is Mrs.
Gore's 'Stokeshill Park,' and 'My Aunt Dorothy,' and some French novels,
and, above all, dear Charles Lamb's Letters, which I have been sighing
for and have begun upon instantly. I cannot imagine what number of
hill-bearers will take our goods up to Simla. Major J. has written for
1,500, and they are already at work taking the first division of goods
up. Our camp will break up almost entirely in a few days. We three, with
two aides-de-camp, the doctor, and one secretary, are going through the
Dhoon, a sort of route that will not admit of a large party. It is a
very pretty road, and likely to be cooler than the actual plains.
The rest of the camp and most of the servants will pursue the straight
road. I long to get into the hills more than ever. It is grown so very
hot now, quite as bad as Calcutta in May. I believe we shall not be able
to take Wright and Jones this route, which will make them very unhappy.
St. Cloup told me yesterday that he had at last had a letter from Madame
St. Cloup, which had made him very happy, and that she was in an
excellent place with a relation of ours. Poor woman! she little knows
what a faithless man he is. However, he bought her a beautiful gold
chain at Delhi, and he said that now he had had this letter, he had
'quelque envie de lui acheter des boucles d'oreilles,' but that he
thought it would be better to take them home. It would make her more
glad to see him.