DELHI, the chief city of the above province, and for many years the capital of the Patan and Mogul empires, situated on the banks of a branch of the Jumna. During the era of its splendour it is said to have occupied a space of twenty miles round; and its great extent is still attested by the ruins, which cover a vast surface. The inhabited part of the town is about seven miles in circuit: it is seated on a range of rocky hills, and is surrounded by an embattled wall, which the English government have put into repair, and strengthened with bastions, a moat, and a regular glacis. The city has seven gates in addition to those on the river face, namely, the Lahore gate, Ajmeer gate, Turkoman gate, Delhi gate, Mohur gate, Cabul gate, and Cashmere gate; all built of freestone. The houses within the walls are many of them large and high. The streets are in general narrow, with the exception of two: the first leading from the palace to the Delhi gate, which has an aqueduct along its whole extent; and the second from the palace to the Lahore gate. These are really wide, handsome, and, for an Asiatic city, remarkably clean. The breadth of the first may be about equal to that of Pall-Mall in London, and is called Chandnee Chokee, or Silversmiths' Street, though few of the present residents belong to that craft. The city contains a great number of mosques, with high minarets and gilded domes, and the remains of many splendid pa-
laces belonging to the great omrahs of the empire. They are all surrounded with high walls, and occupy a considerable space of ground, as they comprehend gardens, baths, stables for all sorts of animals, and music galleries. Above all is seen the imperial palace, a very high and extensive cluster of towers and battlements. It was built by Shah Jehan, on the west bank of the Jumna, and is surrounded on three sides by an embattled wall sixty feet high, built of red granite, with small round towers, and two noble gateways, each defended by an outer barbican of the same material, though of less height, and the whole surrounded by a wide moat. It is a place of no strength; but, "as a kingly residence," says Heber, "it is one of the noblest that I have seen. It far surpasses the Kremlin; but I do not think that, except in the durability of its materials, it equals Windsor." On the opposite bank of the river is the fortress of Selimgurh, now in ruins. The gardens of Shah-limar were made by the Emperor Shah Jehan, and are said to have cost one million sterling; but, like his other works, they are now in ruins. They were surrounded by a brick wall, and were about a mile in circumference.
There are many fine mosques in Delhi still in good repair, the chief of which are the Jumna Musjeed and the Kala Musjeed. The former is advantageously elevated on a small rocky eminence to the full height of the surrounding houses. It was begun by Shah Jehan in the fourth year of his reign, and was completed in the tenth. In front it has a large square court, surrounded by a cloister open on both sides. It is paved with granite inlaid with marble, and commands a view of the whole city. In the centre is a great marble reservoir of water, with some small fountains supplied by machinery from the canal. On its west side and rising at another flight of steps, is the mosque itself, which is entered by three noble Gothic arches, surmounted by three domes of white marble. It has at each end a very tall minaret. "The ornaments," says Heber, "are less florid, and the building less picturesque, than the splendid group of the Imambara and its accompaniments at Lucknow; but the situation is far more commanding. Bishop Heber was more impressed with the size, the solidity, and rich materials of this building, than with anything of the sort which he had seen in India. By the liberality of the British rulers, it is kept in excellent repair, a grant having been made for this purpose. The Kala Musjeed is small, and is chiefly worthy of notice from its plainness, solidity, and great antiquity, being a work of the first Patan conquerors in the times of primitive Mussulman simplicity. Not far from the palace is the pretty little mosque of Roshun ud Dowlah, with its three gilt domes, on the porch of which it is said that, in 1739, Nadir Shah sat to witness the massacre of the unfortunate inhabitants by his licentious soldiery; and a gate leading to a bazaar near it retains the name of "Coonia Durwazu," or the Slaughter Gate. There are besides about forty other mosques of inferior size. The tombs of the imperial family at Delhi have several of them the most splendid architectural ornaments. That of Humaioon, the second of the Mogul dynasty who reigned over Hindustan, is a noble building of granite, inlaid with marble, and in a very simple style of architecture. It is surrounded by a large garden with terraces and fountains; and the garden itself is surrounded by an embattled wall with towers, four gateways, and a cloister within all the way round. In the centre of the square is a platform of about twenty feet high and two hundred feet square, supported by cloisters, and ascended by four great flights of granite steps. Above rises the tomb, also a square, with a great dome of white marble in its centre. The apartments within consist of a circular room, in the centre of which lie, under a small raised slab, the mortal remains of the prince; and smaller chambers in the angles where other branches of his family are interred. About a mile westward is an-
Delhi. other burying-ground, or collection of tombs and small mosques, some of them very beautiful. The most remarkable is a little chapel in honour of a celebrated Mussulman saint Nizam ud Deen; and around his shrine most of the deceased members of the present imperial family lie buried, all in their own little inclosures, surrounded by very elegant lattice-work of white marble. From the gate of Agra to Humaion's tomb is a very awful scene of desolation; "ruins after ruins," says Bishop Heber, "tombs after tombs, fragments of brick-work, freestone, granite, and marble, scattered everywhere over a soil naturally rocky and barren, without cultivation except in one or two small spots, and without a single tree." Amongst these ruins is to be seen one mass which is larger than the rest. This is the old Patan palace, which was a large and solid fortress, in a plain and unornamented style, and chiefly remarkable for a high black pillar of cast metal, called Feroz's Walking Stick, a Hindu emblem of Siva, as is supposed, concerning which there is a tradition, that whilst it stood the children of Brahma were to bear rule in Indraput, the name of the Hindu city which preceded Delhi. The vanity of the prediction appeared when the country was conquered. The pillar is covered with inscriptions, mostly in Persian and Arabic; but that portion of it which probably contains the prophecy is inscribed with characters obsolete and unknown—a sure mark of its high antiquity.
Delhi has fallen from its ancient splendour; the palaces of the nobles, which formerly gave an air of grandeur to the city, having been for the most part demolished. But as these memorials of the resources and magnificence of the Mohammedan dynasties of Hindustan disappear, their sites become occupied by structures of less pretension, but still possessing much elegance of architectural design, and, upon the whole, the city is represented as having greatly improved. Much attention has been paid to its cleanliness; it is amply supplied with water by means of the canal which diffuses constant streams throughout its streets; and the locality is considered healthy. From a series of observations continued over a period of three years, the mean temperature of the atmosphere in the daytime is estimated as follows: January 56°, February 61°, March 72°, April 83°, May 91°, June 92°, July 86°, August 83°, September 83°, October 77°, November 65°, December, 58°. During the cooler months, the frost of the night is sufficient to produce ice, which is carefully removed in the morning and deposited for preservation in deep pits.
Among the more modern buildings of Delhi is the Government College. This institution was founded in 1792. It is divided into four departments—English, Arabic, Persian, and Sanscrit. The number of students, according to the latest returns, amounted to 333, of whom 206 were Mohammedans, 105 Hindus, and 22 Christians. There is also the palace of the British resident and a Protestant church built at the cost of L.10,000 by the munificence of the late Colonel Skinner, a military officer in the service of the East India Company. By a census taken on the 1st January 1853, the city is stated to contain 152,424 inhabitants, of whom 76,390 are represented as being Hindus, and 76,034 as Mohammedans.
The ruins which surround the present town mark the site of old Delhi, which was founded on the ruins of the still larger Hindu city of Indraput towards the west. This city was taken in 1193 by the Mohammedans under Cuttabadeen Khan, who fixed his residence there, and, upon his succeeding to the throne, made it his capital. It was increased and improved, until, under the Afghan monarchs, Agra was made the capital, which continued to be the seat of empire till the return of Humaion from Persia in 1554. During the reigns of Akbar and Jehangire, Delhi was deserted, but was restored to its ancient splendour by the Emperor Shah Jehan, who founded the present city in 1631,
and removed to it many of its inhabitants; others soon followed, to be near the palace and the principal markets; and as, during the disorders of the Mahratta government, it was unsafe to remain without the walls, the old city was soon entirely abandoned. After the defeat of the Mogul army at Kurnaul in 1739, Delhi was occupied by Nadir Shah, the sovereign of Persia. During his stay in the city the Persian troops were rashly attacked by the populace; and Nadir, vainly attempting to restore order, gave directions for a general military execution, which were acted upon with terrible fidelity. From this period the dismemberment of the empire of Delhi rapidly proceeded. Ahmed Shah, the great Mogul, who had succeeded to the shattered sovereignty in 1748, was deposed in 1754, and blinded; and upon the accession of his successor nothing remained to the house of Baber but the decayed metropolis, which itself was taken in 1756 by Ahmed Shah Doorance, and again in 1758 by the Mahrattas. The emperor Shah Alum succeeded to the titular sovereignty in 1759, and having thrown himself into the hands of the Mahrattas, long suffered neglect and abject poverty. Upon the discomfiture of the Mahratta army by Lord Lake in 1803, Delhi admitted the conquering forces without resistance, and the Mogul emperor was taken under the protection of the East India Company. He was honourably treated by the English, who assigned him an annual pension of ten, twelve, and ultimately of fifteen lacs of rupees for his subsistence, and who rendered him all the outward homage of royalty, acknowledging him as the sovereign of the country, and themselves as his tributaries. But the altered position of the British in India at length rendered it expedient to discontinue the further assumption of regal dignity on the part of the Mogul dynasty; and an arrangement has been made with the heir apparent to the titular sovereignty under which upon the reigning emperor's death the palace is to be given up to the British, the members of the royal family removing to other residences. The royal allowances will be continued, but the position of the head of the family will have subsided into that of a subject. Delhi was besieged in 1804 by the Mahratta chief Holkar, commanding an army of 70,000 men, but it maintained a gallant and successful defence under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Burn. The city has an elevation of 800 feet above the level of the sea. Lat. 28. 39. ; Long. 77. 18. (E. T.)