Part 5

He died in 1707, eighty-nine years of age. The Mogul empire, surrounded by hordes of the enemies his bigotry and intolerance had created, was already tottering to its fall, and the star of the British raj was rising. Seventeen years before his death he had granted to Job Charnock a piece of land at Sutanati, the site of the future capital of our Indian empire.

Agra and the Later Mogul Emperors

Agra played a very small part in the history of the weak-minded and dissolute successors of Aurangzîb. Firokhshiyar, who reigned from 1713 to 1719, resided occasionally there. After his death disputes between various claimants to the throne led to Agra Fort being besieged and captured by Husein Ali Khan, a partisan of one of them, who looted the treasury of all the valuables deposited there during three centuries. "There were the effects of Nur Jahan Begum and Mumtaz Mahal, amounting in value, according to various reports, to two or three crores of rupees. There was in particular the sheet of pearls which Shah Jahan had caused to be made for the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, of the value of several lakhs of rupees, which was spread over it on the anniversary and on Friday nights. There was the ewer of Nur Jahan and her cushion of woven gold and rich pearls, with a border of valuable garnets and emeralds." (Elliott.)

In 1739 Nadir, Shah of Persia, sacked Delhi, carried off Shah Jahan's famous peacock throne, and laid Agra also under contribution. The Mahrattas next appeared on the scene. In 1764 the Jâts of Bharatpur, under Suraj Mal, captured Agra, looted the Taj, and played havoc with the palaces in the Fort. They were joined by Walter Reinhardt, an adventurer, half French and half German, who sold his services for any work of infamy, and had only recently assisted in the murder of the British Resident and other Europeans at Patna. He afterwards entered the Mogul service, and was rewarded by a grant of a tract of country near Meerut, which remained in the possession of his family until recent times. He died at Agra in 1778, and was buried in the Catholic cemetery.

For the next thirty-nine years Agra was occupied by Mahrattas and by Mogul imperialists in turn. John Hessing, a Dutch officer in the employ of the Mahrattas, was Governor of Agra in 1794, and died there in 1802. The next year it was captured by the British under General, afterwards Lord, Lake, and from that time until 1857 its history was uneventful.

Agra in the Mutiny.

Agra did not take any prominent part in the events of the Mutiny. A mob plundered the city, burnt the public offices, and killed a number of Europeans; but the rioters left soon to join their comrades at Delhi. There was a small engagement outside the city. The British troops and the whole of the European population were afterwards shut up in the Fort until the capture of Delhi. The Lieutenant-Governor, Mr. John Russell Colvin, died there, and was buried in front of the Dîwan-i-âm.

The Fort

The present Fort was commenced by Akbar in 1566, on the site of an older one constructed by Salîm Shah Sur, the son of Shere Shah. Its vast walls (seventy feet in height, and a mile and a half in circuit), its turrets, and noble gateways present from the outside a most imposing appearance. It contains within its walls that most exquisite of mosques, the Mûti Masjid, and the palaces of Akbar and Shah Jahan. The principal or north entrance is the Delhi Gate, nearly opposite to the railway station and the Jâmi Masjid. Formerly there was a walled enclosure in front of this gate, called the Tripulia, or Three Gates, which was used as a market. This was cleared away by the military authorities in 1875. Crossing the drawbridge over the moat which surrounds the Fort, the visitor passes the outer gate, and by a paved incline reaches the Hathi Pol, or Elephant Gate (Plate III.), so called from the two stone elephants, with riders, which formerly stood outside the gate, on the highest of the platforms on either side of it. The statues and elephants were thrown down by order of Aurangzîb. There are four hollow places in each platform, where the legs of the elephants were morticed into it.

The gate is a fine example of the early Mogul style; it contains the Naubat khana, or music gallery, where the royal kettledrums announced the Emperor's arrival or departure, and all state functions. It was also a guard-house, and probably the quarters of a high military officer, but it is certainly not, as the guides have it, the "Darshan Darwaza," or "Gate of Sights," described by William Finch, where the Emperor Jahangir showed himself at sunrise to his nobles and to the multitude assembled in the plain below. The Darshan Darwaza was undoubtedly near the old disused water-gate, which was joined to the royal apartments of the palace by a private passage, and answers to Finch's description of "leading into a fair court extending along the river." The Elephant Gate is at a considerable distance from the palace, and was never connected with it, except by the public road.

It is worth while to climb the top of the gate by the staircase on the right, inside the Fort. There is a fine view of the Fort, and beyond the walls the ever-beautiful white domes of the Taj appear in the distance. The Itmâd-ud-daulah is visible on the left. Towards the town you look down into the quadrangle of the Jâmi Masjid. The pavilions on the summit of the great octagonal towers flanking the gate are finely carved, and bear traces of painting and enamelled tile-work. Descending the staircase to the floors beneath, one can wander through the curious small chambers and look out from the balconies on the front of the gate.

The Mûti Masjid.

The road to the left after passing the Elephant Gate leads up to the entrance of the Mûti Masjid, or "Pearl Mosque," placed on the highest point of the Fort enclosure. You pass on the left a building known as Dansa Jât's house, said to have been occupied by the Rajahs of Bharatpur when the Jâts held the Fort. It has been made hideous by modern additions which have converted it into officers' quarters.

The entrance to the Mûti Masjid is very plain and unpretending, so that one is hardly prepared for the beauty, purity, and the unaffected expression of an exalted religious feeling which characterize the interior. It is rare to find an Indian building in which the effect is produced with hardly any ornament, but solely by the perfection of proportions, beauty of material, and harmony of constructive design. The courtyard, in front of the mosque, with its arcades and gateways, is a noble setting to the Pearl, as the mosque is appropriately called. There is a subtle rhythm in the placing of the three domes over the seven arches of the mosque, which saves the whole design from monotony, while the marvellous grace of the contours, which is so characteristic of the finest of Shah Jahan's buildings, makes each dome grow up from the roof like a flower-bud on the point of unfolding. The octagonal pavilions at the four corners of the mosque, and the dainty little kiosques placed as decoration over the arches and over the gateways of the courtyard, echo the harmonies of the larger constructive details, and give completeness to the composition.

The interior of the mosque owes its dignity to the same greatness of style and perfection of the proportions. The three aisles are formed by massive piers of single blocks of marble. With all its simplicity, there is consummate art both in the placing of the ornament and in the beautiful springing of the arches from the supporting piers. The fine workmanship is worthy of the art.

On either side of the mosque there is a small chamber for the ladies of the zanana, with a window filled with a carved marble grille looking on to the interior. They could thus attend to the services of the mosque without being seen. The staircases on the right and left of the courtyard give private access to the apartments of the palace.

The Persian inscription inlaid in black marble under the wide, projecting cornice of the mosque is a poetic tribute to the beauty of the building and a panegyric of its founder. From it we learn that it was built by Shah Jahan, it took seven years to build, and cost three lakhs of rupees.

The dimensions of the courtyard, given by Fergusson, are 154 feet by 158 feet; and of the Mosque: length, 159 feet; depth, 56 feet, internally.

The Dersane Darwaza.

Nearly opposite to the Mûti Masjid, you pass on the left an inclined passage which leads to an old gateway, a part of Akbar's buildings. Very little remains of the original buildings which connected it with the palace in the time of Jahangir, but there cannot be much doubt that this was the locality described by William Finch as the "Dersane Darwaza, leading into a fair court, extending along the river, in which the King looks forth every morning at sun-rising, which he salutes, and then his nobles resort to their Tesillam (obeisance). Right under the place where he looks out, is a kind of scaffold, whereon his nobles stand, but the Addis with others await below in the court. Here also every noone he looketh forth to behold Tamâshâh, or fighting of Elephants, Lyons, Buffles, killing of Deare with Leopards, which is a custom on every day of the weeke, Sunday excepted, on which is no fighting; but Tuesday, on the contrary, is a day of blood, both of fighting beasts, and justiced men, the King judging and seeing executions."

The Dîwan-i-âm.

The road now turns towards the right, through the Mîna Bazar, the old market-place, where merchants displayed jewellery, brocades, and similar stuffs for the nobles and others attending the court. A gateway leads into the great courtyard of the Dîwan-i-âm, or Hall of Public Audience, which, with its surrounding arcades, was for a long time used as an armoury for the British garrison. The hall itself was restored in 1876 by Sir John Strachey, then Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces. The courtyard has recently been put back, as far as possible, into its original condition by Lord Curzon's orders. A further great improvement has been made by the removal of the hideous modern additions which entirely concealed all the arcades.

The present hall, which is an open pavilion formed by a triple row of colonnades, was commenced by Shah Jahan, but, if we may believe tradition, was not completed until the 27th year of the reign of Aurangzîb. The arcades surrounding the quadrangle are probably of Akbar's time. The interior dimensions of the hall are 192 feet by 64 feet. It is constructed of red sandstone, plastered over with a fine white polished stucco, which served both as a protection to the stone and as a ground for coloured decoration and gilding. This plaster-work was carried to the perfection of a fine art by the old Mogul builders, but the restoration of it in 1876 was very indifferently carried out.

The throne of the Emperor was in an alcove of inlaid marble at the back of the hall, and connected with the royal apartments behind. Here he sat daily to give audience to his court, to receive ambassadors, and to administer justice. At the foot of the alcove is a square slab of marble, about 3 feet in height, on which, it is said, his ministers stood to receive petitions to the Emperor, and to convey his commands thereon. On the right and left of the throne are chambers with perforated marble windows, through which the ladies of the zanana could view the proceedings. Bernier's lively description, though it properly belongs to the Dîwan-i-âm at Delhi, will enable us to picture the scene in the days of the Great Mogul:--

"The monarch every day, about noon, sits upon his throne, with some of his sons at his right and left, while eunuchs standing about the royal person flap away the flies with peacocks' tails, agitate the air with large fans, or wait with undivided attention and profound humility to perform the different services allotted to each. Immediately under the throne is an enclosure, surrounded by silver rails, in which are assembled the whole body of omrahs (nobles), the Rajas, and the ambassadors, all standing, their eyes bent downwards and their hands crossed. At a greater distance from the throne are the mansebdhars, or inferior omrahs, also standing in the same posture of profound reverence. The remainder of the spacious room, and, indeed, the whole courtyard, is filled with persons of all ranks, high and low, rich and poor; because it is in this extensive hall that the King gives audience indiscriminately to all his subjects; hence it is called Am Khas, or audience chamber of high and low.

"During the hour and a half, or two hours, that this ceremony continues, a certain number of the royal horses pass before the throne, that the King may see whether they are well used and Usbec, of every kind, and each dog with a small red covering; lastly, every species of the birds of prey used in field sports for catching partridges, cranes, hares, and even, it is said, for hunting antelopes, on which they pounce with violence, beating their heads and blinding them with their wings and claws."

After this parade, the more serious business of the day was attended to. The Emperor reviewed his cavalry with peculiar attention, for he was personally acquainted with every trooper. Then all the petitions held up in the assembled crowd were read and disposed of before the audience closed.

On festivals or other special occasions the pillars of the hall were hung with gold brocades, and flowered satin canopies fastened with red silken cords were raised over the whole apartment. The floor was covered entirely with the most magnificent silk carpets. A gorgeous tent, larger than the hall, to which it was fastened, and supported by poles overlaid with silver, was pitched outside. Every compartment of the arcades round the courtyard was decorated by one of the great nobles, at his own expense, with gold brocades and costly carpets, each one vying with the other to attract the attention of the Emperor, to whom, on such occasions, an offering of gold or jewels, more or less valuable according to the pay and rank of the giver, must be presented.