AGRA--VISIT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES--PALACE OF THE GREAT MOGUL--THE
TAJ.
We left Allahabad at midnight, and by noon of the next day were at
Agra, in the heart of the old Mogul Empire. As we approached from the
other side of the Jumna, we saw before us what seemed a royal castle,
of imposing dimensions, strongly fortified, with walls and moat, like
one of the strongholds of the Middle Ages, a castle on the Rhine,
built for a double purpose, half palace and half fortress. As we
crossed the long bridge flags were flying in honor of the Prince of
Wales, who had arrived the week before. His entry into this old Mogul
capital was attended with a display of magnificence worthy of the days
of Aurungzebe. At the station he was met by a great number of Rajahs,
mounted on elephants richly caparisoned, of which there were nearly
two hundred in the procession, with long suites of retainers, who
escorted him to his camp outside of the city. Rev. Mr. Wynkoop (who
came on a few days before to witness the fetes, and was staying with a
friend who had a tent quite near to that of the Prince), met us at the
station and took us out to the Royal camp. It was indeed a beautiful
sight. The tents, many of which were very large, were laid off in an
oblong square, with the marquee of the Prince at the end, in front of
which floated the royal standard of England. The rest of the camp was
laid off in streets. On the outskirts of the Maidan (or parade ground)
were the military selected from different corps of the Indian army.
Some of the native troops in drill and discipline were equal to the
English. The Punjaubees especially were magnificent fellows. Tall and
athletic in figure, they are splendid horsemen, so that a regiment of
Punjaubee (or Sikh) cavalry is one of the sights of India. English
artillery manned the guns with which they saluted the native princes
according to their rank, as they came to pay their respects. Here, on
the Saturday before, the Prince had held a grand Durbar, to which the
Rajahs came riding on elephants, and each with a body-guard of
cavalry, mounted sometimes on horses and sometimes on camels, making
altogether such a scene of barbaric splendor as could not be witnessed
in any country in the world but India.
The Prince was absent from the camp, having gone off a day or two
before to pay a visit to the Maharajah of Gwalior, but an hour later,
while we were making a first visit to the Taj, we heard the guns which
announced his return. A day or two after we saw him starting for
Jeypore, when, although he drove off in a carriage very quietly, the
camels and elephants that went rolling along the different roads, as
we drove out once more to the camp, told of the brilliant pageant that
was ended.
This visit of the Prince of Wales is a great event. It has excited a
prodigious interest in official and military circles. His progress
through the country has been in a blaze of processions and
illuminations. To himself it must have been very gratifying. As he
said, "It had been the dream of his life to visit India." It was a
matter of political wisdom that he should know it, not only through
others but by personal observation. Mr. Disraeli, in proposing it in
Parliament, said justly that "travel was the best education for
princes." It was well that the future King of England, should make
himself acquainted with the great Empire that he was one day to rule.
But whether this royal visit will result in any real benefit to India
to correspond with the enormous expense it has involved, is a question
which I hear a good deal discussed among Englishmen. In some ways it
cannot fail to do good. It has presented to the people of India an
impersonation of sovereignty, a visible representative of that mighty
power, the British Empire. It has conciliated the native princes, who
have been greatly pleased by the frank and manly courtesy of their
future sovereign. In the art of courtesy he is a master. History will
give him this rank among princes, that he was not great, but gracious.
This is a kingly virtue which it was well to have exhibited in the
person of one of such exalted rank, the more as English officials in
India are charged with showing, often in the most offensive way, the
insolence of power. Perhaps it was on this very account that he took
such pains to show a generous and even chivalrous courtesy to natives
of rank, even while he did not hesitate, so I was told by Englishmen,
to "snub" his own countrymen. Such a bearing has certainly commanded
respect, and given him a personal popularity. But it has not converted
the people to loyalty any more than to Christianity. They run to see
the parades, the Rajahs, and the elephants. But as to its exciting any
deeper feeling in them, no Englishman who has lived long in the
country will trust to that for a moment. Even though English rule be
for their own safety and protection, yet their prejudices of race and
religion are stronger than even considerations of interest. It is a
curious illustration of the power of caste that the very Rajahs who
entertain the Prince of Wales with such lavish hospitality, who build
palaces to receive him, and spread before him sumptuous banquets,
still do not themselves sit down at the table; they will not even eat
with their Royal guest; and count his touch of food, and even his
shadow falling upon it, a pollution! Such a people are not to be
trusted very far beyond the range of English guns. The security of
English rule in India is not to be found in any fancied sentiment of
loyalty, which does not exist, but in the overwhelming proof of
English power. British possession is secured by the well-armed
fortresses which overlook every great city, and which could lay it in
ruins in twenty-four hours. The rule that was obtained by the sword,
must be held by the sword.
But the interest of Agra is not in the present, but in the past. There
are few chapters in history more interesting than that of the
Mohammedan invasion of India--a history dating back to the Middle
Ages, but culminating about the time that Columbus discovered the New
World. Those fierce warriors, who had ravaged Central Asia, had long
made occasional incursions into India, but it was not till the
beginning of the sixteenth century that they became complete masters
of the country, and the throne was occupied by a descendant of the
house of Tamerlane.
The dominion thus introduced into India was an exotic, but like other
products of the North, transplanted into a tropical clime, it
blossomed and flowered anew. The Moguls (a corruption of Mongols) had
all the wealth of Ormus and of Ind at their feet, and they lavished it
with Oriental prodigality, displaying a royal state which surpassed
the grandeur of European courts.
The Great Mogul! What power there is in a name! Ever since I was a
child, I had read about the Great Mogul, until there was a magic in
the very word. To be sure, I had not much idea who or what he was; but
perhaps this vagueness itself added to the charm in my imagination. He
was an Oriental potentate, living somewhere in the heart of Asia, in a
pomp and glory quite unknown among barbarians of the West. He was a
sort of Haroun al Raschid, whose magnificence recalled the scenes of
the Arabian Nights. Even more, he was like the Grand Lama, almost an
object of worship. To keep up the illusion, he withdrew from
observation into his Palace, where he sat like a god, rarely seen by
mortal eyes, except by his court, and dwelling in unapproachable
splendor.
And now here I was in the very Palace of the Great Mogul, walking
through the glittering halls where he held his gorgeous revelries,
entering the private apartments of his harem, and looking out of the
very windows from which they looked down upon the valley of the Jumna.
The Palace is in the Citadel of Agra, for those old Emperors took good
care to draw fortified walls around their palaces. The river front
presents a wall sixty feet high, perhaps half a mile long, of red
sandstone, which heightens by contrast the effect of the white marble
pavilions, so graceful and airy-like, that rise above it. The Fort is
of great extent, but it is the mere casket of the jewels within, the
Palace and the Mosque, in which one may see the infinite beauty of
that Saracenic architecture, which is found nowhere in Europe in such
perfection, except in the Alhambra. The Mohammedan conquerors of
India, like the same conquerors of Spain, had gorgeous tastes in
architecture. Both aimed at the grandeur of effect produced by great
size and massive construction, combined with a certain lightness and
airiness of detail, which give it a peculiar delicacy and grace. Here
the imagination flowers in stone. The solid marble is made to bend in
vines and wreaths that run along the walls. The spirit of Oriental
luxury finds expression in cool marble halls, and open courts, with
plashing fountains, where the monarch could dally with the beauties of
his court. In all these things the life of the Great Mogul did not
differ from that of the Moorish Kings of Spain.
The glory of Agra dates from the reign of Akbar the Great who made it
the capital of the Mogul Empire. He built the Fort, with its long line
of castellated walls, rising above the river, and commanding the
country around. Within this enclosure were buildings like a city, and
open spaces with canals, among which were laid out gardens, blooming
with flowers. On the river side of the Fort was a lofty terrace, on
which stood the Palace, built of the purest marble. It was divided
into a number of pavilions whose white walls and gilded domes
glittered in the sun. Passing from one pavilion to another over
tessellated pavements, we enter apartments rich in mosaics and all
manner of precious stones. Along the walls are little kiosks or
balconies, the windows of which are half closed by screens of marble,
which yet are so exquisitely carved and pierced as to seem like veils
of lace, drawn before the flashing eyes that looked out from behind
them. Straying through these rich halls, one cannot but reproduce the
scenes of three centuries ago, when Akbar ruled here in the midst of
his court; when the beauties of his seraglio, gathered from all the
East, sported in these gardens, and looked out from these latticed
windows.
Of equal beauty with the palace is the mosque. It is called the Pearl
Mosque, and a pearl indeed it is, such is the simplicity of outline,
and such the exquisite and almost tender grace in every arch and
column. Said Bishop Heber: "This spotless sanctuary, showing such a
pure spirit of adoration, made me, a Christian, feel humbled when I
considered that no architect of our religion had ever been able to
produce anything equal to this temple of Allah."
But these costly buildings have but little use now. The Mosque is
still here, but few are the Moslems who come to pray; and the palace
is tenantless. The great Moguls are departed. Their last descendant
was the late King of Delhi, who was compromised in the Great Mutiny,
and passed the rest of his life as a state prisoner. Not a trace
remains here nor at Delhi of the old Imperial grandeur. Yet once in a
long while these old palaces serve a purpose to entertain some royal
guest. Last week they were fitted up for a fete given to the Prince of
Wales, when the stately apartments were turned into reception rooms
and banqueting halls. It was a very brilliant spectacle, as the
British officers in their uniforms mingled with the native princes
glittering with diamonds. But it would seem as if the old Moguls must
turn in their coffins to hear this sound of revelry in their vacant
palaces, and to see the places where the Mohammedan ruled so long now
filled by unbelievers.
Perhaps one gets a yet stronger impression of the magnificence of the
Great Mogul in a visit to the Summer Palace of Akbar at
Futtehpore-Sikri, so called from two villages embraced in the royal
retreat. This was the Versailles of the old Moguls. It is over twenty
miles from Agra, but starting early we were able to drive there and
return the same day. The site is a rocky hill, which might have been
chosen for a fortress. The outer wall enclosing it, with the two
villages at its foot, is nine miles in extent. The buildings were on a
scale to suit the wants of an Imperial Court--the plateau of the hill
being laid off in a vast quadrangle, surrounded by palaces, and
zenanas for the women of the Imperial household, and mosques and
tombs. Perhaps the most exquisite building of all is a tomb in white
marble--the resting place of Selim, a Moslem saint, a very holy shrine
to the true believers; although the Mosque is far more imposing, since
before it stands the loftiest gateway in the world. Around the hill
are distributed barracks for troops, and stables for horses and camels
and elephants. The open court in the centre of all these buildings is
an esplanade large enough to draw up an army. Here they show the spot
where Akbar used to mount his elephant, and here his troops filed
before him, or subject princes came with long processions to pay him
homage.
As this palace was built for a summer retreat, everything is designed
for coolness; pavilions, covered overhead, screen from the sun, while
open at the sides, they catch whatever summer air may be stirring. In
studying the architecture of the Moors or the Moguls, one cannot but
perceive, that in its first inception it has been modelled after forms
familiar to their nomadic ancestors. The tribes of Central Asia first
dwelt in tents, and when they came to have more fixed habitations
built of wood or stone, they reproduced the same form, so that the
canvas tent became the marble pavilion--just as the builders of the
Gothic cathedrals caught the lines of their mighty arches from the
interlacing branches of trees which made the lofty aisles of the
forest. So the tribes of the desert, accustomed to live in tents, when
endowed with empire, falling heir to the riches of the Indies, still
preserved the style of their former life, and when they could no
longer dwell in tents, dwelt in tabernacles. These palaces are almost
all constructed on this type. There is one building of singular
structure, five stories high, which is a series of terraces, all open
at the side.
If we believe the tales of travellers and historians, nothing since
the days of Babylon has equalled the magnificence of the Great Mogul.
But magnificence in a sovereign generally means misery in his
subjects. The wealth that is lavished on the court is wrung from the
people. So it is said to have been with some of the successors of
Akbar. The latest historian of Mussulman India[2] says: "They were the
most shameless tyrants that ever disgraced a throne. Mogul
administration ... was a monstrous system of oppression and extortion,
which none but Asiatics could have practised or endured. Justice was a
mockery. Magistrates could always be bribed; false witnesses could
always be bought.... The Hindoos were always in the hands of grinding
task-masters, foreigners who knew not how to pity or to spare."
But Akbar was not merely a magnificent Oriental potentate--he was
truly a great king. A Mohammedan himself, he was free from Moslem
fanaticism and bigotry. Those conquerors of India had a difficult task
(which has vexed their English successors after two centuries), to
rule a people of a different race and a different religion. It was
harder for the Moslem than for the Christian, because his creed was
more intolerant; it made it his duty to destroy those whom he could
not convert. The first law of the Koran was the extermination of
idolatry, but the Hindoos were the grossest of idolaters. How then
could a Mohammedan ruler establish his throne without exterminating
the inhabitants? But the Moslems--like many other conquerors--learned
to bear the ills which they could not remove. Necessity taught them
the wisdom of toleration. In this humane policy they were led by the
example of Akbar, who, though a Mussulman, was not a bigot, and
thought it a pity that subtle questions of belief should divide
inhabitants of the same country. He admitted Hindoos to a share in his
government, and endeavored by complete tolerance to extinguish
religious hatreds. He had even the ambition to be a religious
reformer, and tried to blend the old faith with the new, and to make
an eclectic religion by putting together the systems of Zoroaster, of
the Brahmins, and of Christianity, while retaining some of the
Mohammedan forms. But he could not convert even his own Hindoo wives,
of whom he had one or two, and built a house for each, in Hindoo
architecture, with altars for idol worship. What impression then could
he make outside of the circle of his court?
But greatness commands our homage, even though it sometimes undertakes
tasks beyond human power. Akbar, though he could not inspire others
with his own spirit of justice and toleration, deserves a place in
history as the greatest sovereign that ever sat in the seat of the
Great Mogul. And therefore, when in the Fort at Agra I stood beside
the large slab of black marble, on which he was wont to sit to
administer justice to his people, it was with the same feeling that
one would seek out the oak of Vincennes, under which St. Louis sat for
the same purpose; and at Secundra, a few miles from Agra, we visited
his tomb, as on another continent we had visited the tomb of Frederick
the Great, and of Napoleon.
But the jewel of India--the Koh-i-noor of its beauty--is the TAJ, the
tomb built by the Emperor Shah Jehan, the grandson of Akbar, for his
wife, whom he loved with an idolatrous affection, and on her deathbed
promised to rear to her memory such a mausoleum as had never been
erected before. To carry out his purpose he gathered architects from
all countries, who rivalled each other in the extravagance and
costliness of their designs. The result was a structure which cost
fabulous sums of money (the whole empire being placed under
contribution for it, as were the Jews for the Temple of Solomon), and
employed twenty thousand workmen for seventeen years. The building
thus erected is one of the most famous in the world--like the Alhambra
or St. Peter's--and of which enthusiastic travellers are apt to say
that it is worth going around the world to see. This would almost
discourage the attempt to describe it, but I will try and give some
faint idea of its marvellous beauty.
But how can I convey to others what is but a picture in my memory?
Descriptions of architecture are apt to be vague unless aided by
pictorial illustrations. Mere figures and measurements are dry and
cold. The most I shall aim at will be to give a general (but I hope
not indistinct) _impression_ of it. For this let us approach it
gradually.
It stands on the banks of the Jumna, a mile below the Fort at Agra. As
you approach it, it is not exposed abruptly to view, but is surrounded
by a garden. You enter under a lofty gateway, and before you is an
avenue of cypresses a third of a mile long, whose dark foliage is a
setting for a form of dazzling whiteness at the end. That is the TAJ.
It stands, not on the level of your eye, but on a double terrace; the
first, of red sandstone, twenty feet high, and a thousand feet broad;
at the extremities of which stand two mosques, of the same dark stone,
facing each other. Midway between rises the second terrace, of
marble, fifteen feet high, and three hundred feet square, on the
corners of which stand four marble minarets. In the centre of all,
thus "reared in air," stands the Taj. It is built of marble--no other
material than this of pure and stainless white were fit for a purpose
so sacred. It is a hundred and fifty feet square (or rather it is
eight-sided, since the corners are truncated), and surmounted by a
dome, which rises nearly two hundred feet above the pavement below.
These figures rather belittle the Taj, or at least disappoint those
who looked for great size. There are many larger buildings in the
world. But that which distinguishes it from all others, and gives it a
rare and ideal beauty, is the union of majesty and grace. This is the
peculiar effect of Saracenic architecture. The slender columns, the
springing arches, the swelling domes, the tall minarets, all combine
to give an impression of airy lightness, which is not destroyed even
when the foundations are laid with massive solidity. But it is in the
finish of their structures that they excelled all the world. Bishop
Heber said truly: "They built like Titans and finished like
jewellers." This union of two opposite features makes the beauty of
the Taj. While its walls are thick and strong, they are pierced by
high arched windows which relieve their heaviness. Vines and
arabesques running over the stone work give it the lightness of
foliage, of trees blossoming with flowers. In the interior there is an
extreme and almost feminine grace, as if here the strength of man
would pay homage to the delicacy of woman. Enclosing the sacred spot
is a screen of marble, carved into a kind of fretwork, and so pure and
white that light shines through it as through alabaster, falling
softly on that which is within. The Emperor, bereaved of his wife,
lavished riches on her very dust, casting precious stones upon her
tomb, as if he were placing a string of pearls around her neck. It is
overrun with vines and flowers, cut in stone, and set with onyx and
jasper and lapis lazuli, carnelians and turquoises, and chalcedonies
and sapphires.
But the body rests in the crypt below. We descend a few steps and
stand by the very sarcophagus in which all that loveliness is
enshrined. Another sarcophagus contains the body of her husband. Their
tombs were covered with fresh flowers, a perpetual tribute to that
love which was so strong even on the throne; to those who were thus
united in life, and in death are not divided.
Here sentiment comes in to affect our sense of the beauty of the
place. If it were not for the touching history connected with it, I
could not agree with those who pronounce the Taj the most beautiful
building in the world. Merely as a building, it does not "overcome" me
so much as another marble structure--the Cathedral of Milan. I could
not say with Bishop Heber that the mosques of Islam are more
beautiful, or more in harmony with the spirit of devotion, than
Christian churches or cathedrals. But the Taj is not a mosque, it is a
tomb--a monument to the dead. And that gives it a tender interest,
which spiritualizes the cold marble, and makes it more than a
building--a poem and a dream.
This impression grew upon us the more we saw it. On our last night in
Agra we drove there to take our last view by moonlight. All slept
peacefully on the banks of the Jumna. Slowly we walked through the
long avenue of dark cypresses, that stood like ranks of mourners
waiting for the dead to pass, their tops waving gently in the night
wind, as if breathing a soft requiem over the departed. Mounting the
terrace we stood again before the Taj, rising into the calm blue
heavens. A few nights before the Prince of Wales had been here, and
the interior had been illuminated. As we had not seen it then, we had
engaged attendants with blue lights, who gave us an illumination of
our own. It was a weird scene as these swarthy natives, with naked
arms, held aloft their torches, whose blue flames, flaring and
flickering, cast a spectral light upward into the dim vault above.
To add to the ghostly effect, we heard whispers above us, as if there
were unseen witnesses. It was the echo of our own voices, but one
starts to hear himself in such a place. The dome is a whispering
gallery; and as we stood beside the tomb, and spoke in a low voice
(not to disturb the sleep of the dead), our words seemed to be
repeated. Any sound at the tomb--a sigh of pity, or a plaintive
melody--rising upward, comes back again,--faintly indeed, yet
distinctly and sweetly--as if the very air trembled in sympathy,
repeating the accents of love and of despair, or as if unseen spirits
were floating above, and singing the departing soul to its rest.
Then we went down once more into the crypt below, where sleeps the
form of the beautiful empress, and of Shah Jehan, who built this
monument for her, at her side. The place was dark, and the lights in
the hands of the attendants cast but a feeble glimmer, but this deep
shadow and silence suited the tenor of our thoughts, and we lingered,
reluctant to depart from the resting-place of one so much beloved.
As we came out the moon was riding high overhead, flooding the marble
pile with beauty. Round and round we walked, looking up at arch and
dome and minaret. At such an hour the Taj was so pale and ghostlike,
that it did not seem like a building reared by human hands, but to
have grown where it stood--like a night-blooming Cereus, rising slowly
in the moonlight--lifting its domes and pinnacles (like branches
growing heavenward) towards that world which is the home of the love
which it was to preserve in perpetual memory.
With such thoughts we kept our eyes fixed on that glittering vision,
as if we feared that even as we gazed it might vanish out of our
sight. Below us the Jumna, flowing silently, seemed like an image of
human life as it glided by. And so at last we turned to depart, and
bade farewell to the Taj, feeling that we should never look on it
again; but hoping that it might stand for ages to tell its history of
faithful love to future generations. Flow on, sweet Jumna, by the
marble walls, reflecting the moonbeams in thy placid breast; and in
thy gentle murmurs whispering evermore of Love and Death, and Love
that cannot die!
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Mr. Talboys Wheeler.