Modern India Part 11

His successor was Shah Jehan, one of the most interesting and romantic figures in Indian history, who began his reign by murdering his brothers. That precaution firmly established him upon the throne.

He, too, was considered a good king, but his fame rests chiefly upon the splendor of his court and the magnificent structures he erected. He rebuilt the ancient City of Delhi upon a new site, adorned it with public buildings of unparalleled cost and beauty, and received his subjects seated upon the celebrated peac.o.c.k throne, a ma.s.sive bench of solid gold covered with mosaic figures of diamonds, rubies, pearls and other precious stones. It cost 6,500,000, which is $32,500,000 of our money, even in those times, when jewels were cheap compared with the prices of today.

In 1729 Nadir Shah, the King of Persia, swooped down upon India and carried this wonder of the world to his own capital, together with about $200,000,000 in other portable property.

There are many good traits in the character of Shah Jehan. Aside from his extravagance, his administration was to be highly commended.

Under his rule India reached the summit of its wealth and prosperity, and the people enjoyed liberty and peace, but retribution came at last, and his sons did unto him as he had done unto his father, and much more also. They could not wait until he was ready to relinquish power or until death took the scepter from his hand, but four of them rebelled against him, drove him from the throne and kept him a prisoner for the last eight years of his life. But scarcely had they overthrown him when they began to quarrel among themselves, and Aurangzeb, the fourth son, being the strongest among them, simplified the situation by slaughtering his three brothers, and was thus able to reign unmolested for more than half a century, until he died in 1707, 89 years old. His last days were embittered by a not unnatural fear that he would suffer the fate of his own father.

From the time that the Emperor Aurangzeb climbed to the throne of the Moguls upon the dead bodies of his father and three elder brothers, the glory and power of that empire began to decay.

He reigned forty-nine years. His court was magnificent. At the beginning his administration was wise and just, and he was without question an able, brave and cultured king. But, whether as an atonement for his crimes or for some other reason, he became a religious fanatic, and after a few years the broad-minded policy of religious liberty and toleration, which was the chief feature of the reign of his father and his grandfather, was reversed, and he endeavored to force all of his subjects into the Mohammedan faith. He imposed a heavy head tax upon all who did not profess that faith; he excluded all but Moslems from the public service; he deprived "infidels," as they were generally termed, of valuable civil rights and privileges; he desecrated the shrines and destroyed the sacred images of the Hindus, and prohibited the religious festivals and other features of their worship. The motive of this policy was no doubt conscientious, but the effect was the same as that which has followed similar sectarian zeal in other countries. The history of the world demonstrates that religious intolerance and persecution always destroy prosperity. No nation ever prospered that prohibited freedom of worship. You will find a striking demonstration of that truth in Spain, in the Balkan states and in the Ottoman Empire, in modern times without going back to the Jews and other ancient races. The career of Aurangzeb is strikingly like that of Philip II. of Spain, and his character was similar to that of Louis XIV. of France, who was his contemporary.

Both were unscrupulous, arrogant, egotistical and cruel kings; both were religious devotees and endeavored to compensate for a lack of morals by excessive zeal in persecuting heretics, and in promoting what they considered the interests of their church; and both created disaffection and provoked rebellion among their subjects, and undermined the power and authority of the dynasties to which they belonged.

It is needless to review the slow but gradual decay of the Great Mogul Empire. With the adoption of Aurangzeb's policy of intolerance it began to crumble, and none of his successors proved able to restore it. He died in 1707, and the throne of the Moguls was never again occupied by a man of force or notable ability. The history of the empire during the eighteenth century is merely a record of successive failures, of disintegration, of successful rebellions and of invasions by foreign foes, which stripped the Moguls of their wealth and destroyed their resources. First came the Persians; then the Afghans, who plundered the imperial capital, desecrated tombs and temples, destroyed the fortresses and palaces and left little but distress and devastation when they departed.

One by one the provinces separated themselves from the empire and set up their own independence; until in 1804 the English took possession of the remnant and have maintained their authority ever since.

Within the wall of the great citadel at Delhi, for reasons of policy, the English allowed the great Mogul to maintain a fict.i.tious court, and because the t.i.tle continued to command the veneration of the natives, at state ceremonies the nominal successor of Timour the Tartar was allowed to sit upon a throne in the imperial hall of audience and receive the homage of the people. But the Moguls were not allowed to exercise authority and were idle puppets in the hands of their advisers until the great mutiny of 1857 brought the native soldiers into the palace crying:

"Help, oh King, in our Fight for the Faith."

It is not necessary to relate the details of that awful episode of Indian history, but it will do no harm to recall what we learned in our school days of the princ.i.p.al incidents and refer to the causes which provoked it. From the beginning of the British occupation of India there had been frequent local uprisings caused by discontent or conspiracy, but the East India Company, and the officials of the British government who supported it, had perfect confidence in the loyalty of the sepoys--the native soldiers who were hired to fight against their fellow countrymen for so much pay. They were officered by Englishmen, whose faith in them was only extinguished by a.s.sa.s.sination and ma.s.sacre. The general policy and the general results of British administration have been worthy of the highest commendation, but there have been many blunders and much injustice from time to time, due to individuals rather than to the nation. A weak and unwise man in authority can do more harm in a year than can be corrected in a century. Several so-called "reforms" had been introduced into the native army; orders had been issued forbidding the use of caste marks, the wearing of earrings and other things which Englishmen considered trivial, but were of great importance to the Hindus. Native troops were ordered over the sea, which caused them to lose their caste; new regulations admitted low-caste men to the service; the entire army was provided with a new uniform with belts and c.o.c.kades made from the skins of animals which the Hindus considered sacred, and cartridges were issued which had been covered with lard to protect them from the moisture of the climate, and, as everybody knows, the flesh of swine is the most unclean thing in existence to the pious Hindu. All these things, which the stubborn, stupid Englishmen considered insignificant, were regarded by the sepoys as deliberate attacks upon their religion, and certain conspirators, who had reasons for desiring to destroy British authority, used them to convince the native soldiers that the new regulations were a long-considered and deliberate attempt to deprive them of their caste and force them to become Christians. Unfortunately the British officers in command refused to treat the complaints seriously, and laughed in the faces of their men, which was insult added to injury, and was interpreted as positive proof of the evil intentions of the government.

This situation was taken advantage of by certain Hindu princes who had been deprived of power or of pensions previously granted.

Nana Sahib, the deposed raja of Poona, was the leader, and the unsuspecting authorities allowed him to travel about the country stirring up discontent and conspiring with other disloyal native chiefs for a general uprising and ma.s.sacre, which, according to their programme, occurred in northern India during the summer of 1857. If the British had desired to play into the hands of the conspirators they could not have adopted a policy more effective in that direction. Utterly unconscious of danger and unsuspicious of the conspiracies that were enfolding them, they relieved city after city of its guard of English troops and issued arms and ammunition in unusual and unnecessary quant.i.ties to the sepoys, at whose mercy the entire foreign population was left.

The outbreak occurred according to the programme of Nana Sahib, who proved to be a leader of great ability and strategic skill, and in nearly every city of northern India, particularly at Delhi, Lucknow, Cawnpore and other places along the Ganges, men, women and children, old and young, in the foreign colonies were butchered in cold blood. In Agra 6,000 foreigners gathered for protection in the walls of the great fort, and most of them were saved.

Small detachments of brave soldiers under General Havelock, Sir Henry Lawrence, Sir Colin Campbell, Sir Hugh Rose, Lord Napier and other leaders fought their way to the rescue, and the conspiracy was finally crushed, but not without untold suffering and enormous loss of life.

On the evening of May 11, 1857, about fifty foreigners, all unarmed civilians, were brought into the palace at Delhi, and by order of Bahander Shah, the Mogul whom the mutineer leaders had proclaimed Emperor of India, were thrust into a dungeon, starved for five days and then hacked to pieces in the beautiful courtyard. The new emperor, a weak-minded old man with no energy or ability, and scarcely intellect enough to realize his responsibilities, p.r.o.nounced judgment and issued the orders prepared for him by the conspirators by whom he was surrounded. But retribution was swift and sure. A few weeks later when the British troops blew in the walls of the palace citadel after one of the most gallant a.s.saults ever recorded in the annals of war, the old man, with two of his sons, fled to the tomb of Humayon, who occupied the Mogul throne from 1531 to 1556, as if that sanctuary would be revered by the British soldiers.

This tomb is one of the most notable buildings in India. It stands on the bank of the Jumna River, about five miles from the present city of Delhi. It is an octagonal ma.s.s of rose-colored sandstone and white marble, decorated with an ingenuity of design and delicacy of execution that have never been surpa.s.sed, and is crowned by a marble dome of perfect Persian pattern, three-fourths the diameter of that of St. Paul's Cathedral of London, and almost as large as that of the Capitol at Washington. In this splendid mausoleum, where twelve of his imperial ancestors sleep, the Last of the Moguls endeavored to conceal himself and his sons, but Colonel Hodson, who commanded a desperate volunteer battalion of foreigners whose property had been confiscated or destroyed by the mutineers, whose wives had been ravished and whose children had been ma.s.sacred, followed the flying Mogul to the asylum he sought, and dragged him trembling and begging for mercy from among the tombs.

Hodson was a man of remarkable character and determination and was willing to a.s.sume responsibility, and "Hodson's Horse," as the volunteer battalion was called, were the Rough Riders of the Indian mutiny. He took the aged king back to Delhi and delivered him to the British authorities alive, but almost imbecile from terror and excitement. The two princes, 19 and 22 years of age, he deliberately shot with his own revolver before leaving the courtyard of the tomb in which they were captured.

This excited the horror of all England. The atrocities of the mutineers were almost forgotten for the moment. That the heirs of the throne of the great Moguls should be killed by a British officer while prisoners of war was an offense against civilization and Christianity that could not be tolerated, although only a few weeks before these two same princes had partic.i.p.ated in the cold-blooded butchery of fifty Christian women and children.

There was a parliamentary investigation. Hodson explained that he had only a few men, too few to guard three prisoners of such importance; that he was surrounded by fifty thousand half-armed and excited natives, who would have exterminated his little band and rescued his prisoners if anyone of their number had possessed sufficient presence of mind and courage to make the attempt.

Convinced that he could not conduct three prisoners through that crowd of their adherents and sympathizers without sacrificing his own life and that of his escort, he took the responsibility of shooting the princes like the reptiles they were, and thus relieved the British government from what might have been a most embarra.s.sing situation.

Hodson was condemned by parliament and public opinion, while the bloodthirsty old a.s.sa.s.sin he had captured was treated as gently and as generously as if he had been a saint. Bahandur Shah was tried and convicted of treason, but was acquitted of responsibility for the ma.s.sacre on the ground that his act authorizing it was a mere formality, and that it would have occurred without his consent at any rate. Instead of hanging him the British government sent him in exile to Rangoon, where he was furnished a comfortable bungalow and received a generous pension until November, 1862, when he died. Bahandur Shah had a third son, a worthless drunken fellow, who managed to escape the consequences of his partic.i.p.ation in the ma.s.sacre and accompanied him into exile. He survived his father for several years and left a widow and several children at Rangoon, including a son, who inherited his indolence, but not his vices. The latter still lives there on a small pension from the British government, is idle, indifferent, amiable and well-liked. He goes to the races, the polo games and tennis matches, and takes interest in other sports, but is too lazy to partic.i.p.ate. He has married a Burmese wife and they have several children, who live with him in the bungalow that was a.s.signed to his grandfather when he was sent to Burma forty-five years ago, and, judging from appearances, it has not been repaired since. Although he is perfectly harmless, the Last of the Moguls is required to report regularly to the British commandant and is not allowed to leave Burma, even if he should ever desire to do so.

XIV

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE MOGULS

Although the Moguls have vanished, their glory remains in the most sublime and beautiful monuments that were ever erected by human hands, and people come from the uttermost parts of the earth to admire them. In the form of fortresses, palaces, temples and tombs they are scattered pretty well over northern India, and the finest examples may be found at Agra, a city of 200,000 inhabitants, only a short ride from Delhi, the Mogul capital. Agra was their favorite residence. Akbar the Great actually removed the seat of government there the latter part of the sixteenth century, and expended genius and money until he made it the most beautiful city in India and filled it with the most splendid palaces that were ever seen. Shah Jehan, his grandson, who was a greater man than he, and lived and reigned nearly a hundred years after him, even surpa.s.sed him in architectural ambition and accomplishments. Jehan built the fort at Agra, and the best specimens of his architectural work are within its walls, erected between 1630 and 1637, and he was confined within them, the prisoner of his son Aurangzeb, for seven years before his death, from 1658 to 1665.

The fortress at Agra is probably the grandest citadel ever erected.

It surpa.s.ses in beauty and strength the Kremlin at Moscow, the Tower of London, the citadel at Toledo and every other fortress I know of. Nothing erected in modern times can compare with it.

Although it would be a poor defense and protection against modern projectiles, it was impregnable down to the mutiny of 1857. The walls are two miles and a quarter in circ.u.mference; they are protected by a moat 30 feet wide and 35 feet deep; they are 70 feet high and 30 feet thick, and built of enormous blocks of red sandstone. There are two entrances, both very imposing, one called the Delhi Gate and the other the Elephant Gate, where there used to be two large stone elephants, but they were removed many years ago. Within the walls is a collection of the most magnificent oriental palaces ever erected, with mosques, barracks, a.r.s.enals, storehouses, baths and other buildings for residential, official and military purposes, all of them on the grandest scale.

Since the British have had possession they have torn down many of the old buildings and have erected unsightly piles of brick and stone in their places, but while such vandalism cannot be condemned in terms too strong, the world should be grateful to them for leaving the most characteristic and costly of the Mogul residences undisturbed. A small garrison of English soldiers is quartered in the fortress at present, just enough to protect it and keep things in order, but there is room for several regiments, and during the mutiny of 1857 more than 6,000 foreigners, refugees from northern India, found refuge and protection here.

Although the palaces seem bare and comfortless to us to-day, and we wonder how people could ever be contented to live in them, we are reminded that when they were actually occupied the open arches were hung with curtains, the marble floors were spread with rugs and covered with cushions, and the banquet halls were furnished with sumptuous services of gold, silver and linen.

The Moguls were not ascetics. They loved luxury and lived in great magnificence with every comfort and convenience that the ingenuity and experience of those days could contrive. It is never safe to judge of things by your own standard. You may always be sure that intelligent people will adapt themselves in the best possible manner to their conditions and environment. Those who live in the tropics know much better how to make themselves comfortable than friends who visit them from the arctic zone.

Wise travelers will always imitate local habits and customs so far as they are able to do so. While these wonderful compositions of carved marble seem cold and comfortless as they stand empty to-day, we must not forget that they were very different when they were actually inhabited. Some idea of the luxury of the Mogul court may be gained from an account given by M. Bernier, a Frenchman who visited Agra in 1663 during the reign of Shah Jehan. He says:

"The king appeared sitting upon his throne, in the bottom of the great hall of the Am-kas, splendidly appareled. His vest was of white satin, flowered and raised with a very fine embroidery of gold and silk. His turban was of cloth-of-gold, having a fowl wrought upon it like a heron, whose foot was covered with diamonds of an extraordinary bigness and price, with a great oriental topaz, which may be said to be matchless, shining like a little sun. A collar of big pearls hung about his neck down to his stomach, after the manner that some of the heathens wear their great beads.

His throne was supported by six pillars, or feet, said to be of ma.s.sive gold, and set with rubies, emeralds and diamonds. I am not able to tell you aright either the number or the price of this heap of precious stones, because it is not permitted to come near enough to count them and to judge of their water and purity. Only this I can say: that the big diamonds are there in confusion, and that the throne is estimated to be worth four kouroures of roupies, if I remember well. I have said elsewhere that a roupie is almost equivalent to half a crown, a lecque to a hundred thousand roupies and a kourour to a hundred lecques, so that the throne is valued at forty millions of roupies, which are worth about sixty millions of French livres. That which I find upon it best devised are two peac.o.c.ks covered with precious stones and pearls. Beneath this throne there appeared all the Omrahs, in splendid apparel, upon a raised ground covered with a canopy of purified gold, with great golden fringes and inclosed by a silver balistre. The pillars of the hall were hung with tapestries of purified gold, having the ground of gold; and for the roof of the hall there was nothing but great canopies of flowered satin, fastened with great red silken cords that had big tufts of silk mixed with threads of gold."

The gem of the architectural exhibition at Agra, always exempting the Taj Mahal, is the "Pearl Mosque," so called because it is built of stainless white marble, without the slightest bit of color within except inscriptions from the Koran here and there inlaid in precious stones. It was the private chapel of the Moguls, as you might say; was built between 1648 and 1655, and has been p.r.o.nounced by the highest authority to be the purest and most elegant example of Saracenic architecture in existence. No lovelier sanctuary was ever erected in honor of the Creator. One of the inscriptions tells us that it was intended to be "likened to a mansion of paradise or to a precious pearl." It is built after the usual fashion, a square courtyard paved with white marble and surrounded by a marble colonnade of exquisite arches, supported by pillars of perfect grace. The walls upon three sides are solid; the western side, looking toward Mecca, being entirely open, a succession of arches supported by columns exquisitely carved.

And the roof is crowned with a forest of minarets and three white marble domes. In the center of the courtyard is a marble tank thirty-seven feet square and three feet deep, in which the faithful performed their ablutions before going to prayer.

Near by the mosque is the Diwan-i-'Am, or Hall of Public Audience, 201 feet square, in which the Moguls received their subjects and held court. The roof is supported by nine rows of graceful columns cut from red sandstone and formerly covered with gold.

The rest of the building is marble. The throne stood upon a high platform in an alcove of white marble, richly decorated, and above it are balconies protected by grilles or screens behind which the sultanas were permitted to watch the proceedings. Back of the audience-room is a great quadrangle, planted with trees, flowers and vines. White marble walks radiate from a marble platform and fountain basin in the center, and divide the garden into beds which, we are told, were filled with soil brought from Cashmere because of its richness. And even to-day gardeners say that it is more productive than any found in this part of the country.

Around this court were the apartments of the zenana, or harem, occupied by the mother, sisters, wives and daughters of the sultan who were more or less prisoners, but had considerable area to wander about in, and could sit in the jasmine tower, one of the most exquisite pieces of marble work you can imagine, and on the flat roofs of the palaces, which were protected by high screens, and enjoy views over the surrounding country and up and down the Jumna River. From this lofty eyrie they could witness reviews of the troops and catch glimpses of the gay cavalcades that came in and out of the fortress, and in a small courtyard was a bazar where certain favored merchants from the city were allowed to come and exhibit goods to the ladies of the court. But these were the only glimpses female royalty ever had of the outer world.

No man was ever admitted to the zenana except the emperor. All domestic work was done by women, who were watched on the outside by eunuchs and then by soldiers. They had their own place of worship, the "Gem Mosque" they called it, a beautiful little structure erected by Shah Jehan, and afterward used as his prison.

The baths are of the most sumptuous character. The walls are decorated with raised foliage work in colors, silver and gold, upon a ground of mirrors, and the ceiling is finished with pounded mica, which has the effect of silver. Fronting the entrance of the bathrooms are rows of lights over which the water poured in broad sheets into a basin, then, running over a little marble causeway, fell over a second cl.u.s.ter of lights into another basin, and then another and another, five in succession, so that many ladies were able to bathe in these fascinating fountains at the same time. Below the baths we were shown some dark and dreary vaults. In the center of the most gloomy of them there is a pit--a well--which, the guide told us, has its outlet in the bottom of the river, three-quarters of a mile away. Over this pit hangs a heavy beam of wood very highly carved, and in the center is a groove from which dangles a silken rope. Here, according to tradition, unfaithful inmates of the harem were hanged, and when life was extinct the cord was cut and the body fell into the pit, striking the keen edge of knives at frequent intervals, so that it finally reached the river in small fragments, which were devoured by fishes or crocodiles, or if they escaped them, floated down to the sea. After each execution a flood of water was turned from the fountains into the pit to wash away the stains.

But let us turn from this terrible place to the jasmine tower containing apartments of the chief sultana, which overhangs the walls of the fort and is surpa.s.singly beautiful: a series of rooms entirely of marble--roof, walls and floor--and surrounded by a broad marble veranda supported, by n.o.ble arches springing from graceful, slender pillars arranged in pairs and protected by a bal.u.s.trade of perforated marble. One could scarcely imagine anything more dainty than these lacelike screens of stone extremely simple in design and exquisite in execution. The interior walls are incrusted with mosaic work of jasper, carnelian, lapis-lazuli, agate, turquoise, bloodstone, malachite and other precious materials in the form of foliage, flowers, ornamental scrolls, sentences from the Koran in Arabic letters and geometrical patterns. The decoration is as beautiful and as rich as the Taj Mahal, so far as it goes, and was done by the same artists.

There is a broad field for the imagination to range about in and picture this palace when it was a paradise of luxury and splendor, filled with gorgeous and costly hangings, draperies, rugs, couches and cushions. The writers of the time tell us that the sultanas had 5,000 women around them who were divided into companies. First were the three chief wives, next in rank were 300 concubines and the remainder were dancing girls, musicians, artists, embroiderers, seamstresses, hair dressers, cooks and other servants. The mother of the Mogul was always the head of the household. The three empresses were subject to her authority, according to the oriental custom, and while they might stand first in the affections of the Mogul they were subordinate to his mother, who conducted affairs about the harem, we are told, with the same regularity and strictness that were found in the executive departments of the state. Each of the wives received an allowance according to her rank. If she had a child, especially a son, she was immediately promoted to the highest rank, given larger and better quarters, provided with many more servants and furnished with a much larger allowance in money.

The apartments of the emperor are quite plain when compared with the adjoining suite of the favorite sultana, but are ma.s.sive, dignified and appropriate for a sovereign of his wealth and power, and everything is finished with that peculiar elegance which is only found in the East. In all the great cl.u.s.ter of buildings there is nothing mean or commonplace. Every apartment, every corridor, every arch and every column is perfect and a wonder of architectural design, construction and decoration.

From the emperor's apartments you may pa.s.s through a stately pavilion to a large marble courtyard. Upon one side of it, next to the wall that overhangs the river, is a slab of black marble known as "The Black Marble Throne." And upon this he used to sit when hearing appeals for justice from his subjects or other business of supreme importance. Upon the opposite side of the court is a white marble slab upon which the grand vizier sat and to the east is a platform where seats were provided for the judges, the n.o.bles and the grandees of the court. In this pavilion have occurred some of the most exciting scenes in Indian history.

Perhaps you would like to know something about the women who lived in these wonderful palaces, and are buried in the beautiful tombs at Agra. They had their romances and their tragedies, and although the Mohammedan custom kept them closely imprisoned in the zenanas, they nevertheless exerted a powerful influence in arranging the destinies of the Mogul empire. The most notable of the women, and one who would have taken a prominent part in affairs in whatever country or in whatever generation it had pleased the Almighty to place her, was Nur Jehan, sultana of the Mogul Jehanghir. She lived in the marble palace of Agra from 1556 to 1605; a woman of extraordinary force of character, the equal of Queen Elizabeth in intellect and of Mary Stuart in physical attractions, and her life was a mixture of romance and tragedy. Her father, Mizra Gheas Bey, or Itimad-Ud Daula, as he was afterward known, was grand vizier of the Mogul empire during the latter part of the reign of Akbar the Great. An obscure but ambitious Persian scholar, hearing of the generous patronage extended to students by Emperor Akbar in India, he started from Teheran to Delhi overland, a distance of several thousand miles. He had means enough to buy a donkey for his wife to ride, and trudged along with a caravan on foot beside the animal to protect her and the panniers which contained all their earthly possessions. The morning after the caravan reached Kandahar, Turkestan, a daughter was born to the wife of Mirza, and was, naturally, a great source of anxiety and embarra.s.sment to him, but the princ.i.p.al merchant of the caravan, struck with the beauty of the child and with sympathy for the mother, provided for their immediate needs, took them with him to Agra and there used his good offices with the officials in behalf of the father, who was given employment under the government. His ability and fidelity were soon recognized. He was promoted rapidly, and finally reached the highest office in the gift of the Mogul--that of prime minister of the empire--which he filled with conspicuous ability, wisdom and prudence for many years. As his daughter grew to girlhood she attracted the attention of Prince Jehanghir, who became violently in love with her, and, to prevent complications, the emperor caused her to be married to Shir Afghan Kahn, a young Persian of excellent family, who was made viceroy of Bengal, and took his wife with him to Calcutta.

Several years later, when Jehanghir ascended the throne, he had not forgotten the beautiful Persian, and sent emissaries to Calcutta to arrange with her husband for a divorce so that he might take her into his own harem. Shir Afghan refused, and the king ordered his a.s.sa.s.sination. Nur Jehan undoubtedly loved her husband, and sincerely mourned him. She repelled the addresses of the emperor, and for several years earned her living by embroidery and painting silks. One day the emperor surprised her in her apartment. He was the only man in India who had the right to intrude upon his lady subjects, but seems to have used it with rare discretion.

When she recognized her visitor she bowed her head to the floor nine times in accordance with the custom of the country; and although she was wearing the simplest of garments, she had lost none of her beauty or graces, and treated the Mogul with becoming modesty and dignity. When he reproached her for her plain attire she replied:

"Those born to servitude must dress as it shall please them whom they serve. Those women around me are my servants and I lighten their bondage by every indulgence in my power; and I, who am your slave, O Emperor of the World, am willing to dress according to your pleasure and not my own."

This significant retort pleased His Majesty immensely, and, with the facilities that were afforded emperors in those days, he had her sent at once to the imperial harem, where she was provided with every possible comfort and luxury and was promoted rapidly over the other women. She received the t.i.tle Nur Jehan Begam (Light of the World). The Emperor granted her the right of sovereignty in her own name; her portrait was placed upon the coin of the country; and after several years her power became so great that the officials would not obey any important order from his majesty unless it bore her indors.e.m.e.nt. He willingly submitted to her judgment and counsel. She repressed his pa.s.sions, caprices and prejudices, and when any matter of serious importance arose in the administration of affairs, it was submitted to her before action was taken. Her beauty and her graces were the theme of all the poets of India, and her goodness, the kindness of her heart and her unbounded generosity are preserved by innumerable traditions. She was the G.o.dmother of all orphan girls and provided their dowers when they were married, and it is said that during her reign she procured good husbands for thousands of friendless girls who otherwise must have spent their lives in slavery. Thus the child of the desert became the most powerful influence in the East, for in those days the authority of the Mogul extended from the Ganges to the Bosporus and the Baltic Sea.

Nur Jehan took good care of her own family. Her father continued to occupy the office of grand vizier until his death, and her brother, Asaf Khan, became high treasurer of the empire and father-in-law of the Mogul. Other relatives were placed in remunerative and influential positions. But at last she made a blunder, and failed to secure the crown for her son, Sheriar, who, being a younger member of the family, was not ent.i.tled to it, and Shah Jehan, the oldest son of the Mogul by another wife, succeeded him to the throne.

Shah Jehan promptly murdered his ambitious brother, as was the amiable custom of those days, but treated his father's famous widow with great respect and generosity. He presented her with a magnificent palace, gave her an allowance of $1,250,000 a year and accepted her pledge that she would interfere no longer in politics. She survived nineteen years and devoted her time and talents thereafter and several millions of dollars to the construction of a tomb to the memory of her father, which still stands as one of the finest of the group of architectural wonders of Agra. It is situated in a walled garden on the bank of the River Jumna about a mile and a half from the hotels, and is constructed entirely of white marble. The sides are of the most beautiful perforated work, and the towers are of exquisite design.

Much of the walls are covered with the Florentine mosaic work similar to that which distinguishes the Taj Mahal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AKBAR, THE GREAT MOGUL. SHAH JEHAN]

Shah Jehan, the greatest of all the Moguls, had many wives, and three in particular. One of them was a Hindu, of whom we know very little; another was a Mohammedan, the daughter of Asaf Khan, high treasurer of the empire and the niece of Nur Jehan. She is the woman who sleeps in the Taj Mahal, the most beautiful of all human structures. The third was Miriam, a Portuguese Christian princess, who never renounced her religion, and built a Roman Catholic Church in a park outside the walls of Agra in connection with a palace provided for her special residence. This marriage was brought about through the influence of the governor of the Portuguese colony at Goa, 200 miles south of Bombay, and ill.u.s.trates the liberality of Shah Jehan in religious matters. He not only tolerated, but invited Catholic missionaries to come into his empire and preach their doctrines, and although we know very little of the experience of the Sultana Miriam, and her life must have been rather lonely and isolated, yet the king did not require her to remain in the harem with his other wives, but gave her an independent establishment a considerable distance from the city, where she was attended by ladies of her own race and religion. Her palace has disappeared, but the church she built is still standing, and her tomb is preserved. By successive changes they have pa.s.sed under the control of the Church of England and her grounds are now occupied by an orphanage under the superintendence of a Mr. Moore, who has 360 young Hindus under his care. The fathers and mothers of most of them died during the famine and he is teaching them useful trades. We stopped to talk to some of the children as we drove about the place, but did not get much information. The boys giggled and ran away and the workmen were surprisingly ignorant of their own affairs, which, I have discovered, is a habit Hindus cultivate when they meet strangers.

Akbar the Great is buried in a coffin of solid gold in a mausoleum of exquisite beauty about six miles from Agra on the road to Delhi. It is another architectural wonder. Many critics consider it almost equal to Taj Mahal. It is reached by a lovely drive along a splendid road that runs like a green aisle through a grove of n.o.ble old trees whose boughs are inhabited by myriads of parrots and monkeys. The mausoleum is quite different from any other that we have seen, being a sort of pyramid of four open platforms, standing on columns. These are of red sandstone and the fourth, where rests the tomb of the great Mogul, of marble.

The lower stories are frescoed and decorated elaborately in blue and gold. The fourth or highest platform is a beautiful little cloister of the purest white. No description in words could possibly do it justice or convey anything like an accurate idea of its beauty. Imagine, if you can, a platform eighty feet from the ground reached by beautiful stairways and inclosed by roofless walls of the purest marble that was ever quarried. These walls are divided into panels. Each panel contains a slab of marble about an inch thick and perforated like the finest of lace. The divisions and frame work, the base and frieze are chiseled with embroidery in stone such as can be found nowhere else. There is no roof but the sky. In the center of this lofty chamber stands a solid block of marble which is covered with inscriptions from the Koran in graceful, flowing Persian text. Sealed within a cenotaph underneath are the remains of the great Akbar.

About three feet from his head stands a low marble column exquisitely carved. It is about four feet high, and in the center of the top is a defect, a rough hole, which seems to have been left there intentionally. When the mighty Akbar died, his son and successor, the Emperor Jehanghir, imbedded in the center of that column, where it might be admired by the thousands of people who came to the tomb every day, the Kohinoor, then the most valued diamond in the world and still one of the most famous of jewels, and chief ornament in the British crown. It was one of the most audacious exhibitions of wealth and recklessness ever made, but the stone remained there in the open air, guarded only by the ordinary custodian of the tomb, from 1668 to 1739, when Nadir, Shah of Persia, invaded India, captured Delhi, sacked the palaces of the moguls, and carried back to his own country more than $300,000,000 worth of their treasures.