ty wall in strength, and is itself more than
a mile in length. Few cities in the East present a more striking
aspect from without. Over the battlements of the walls rise the
slender minarets and shining domes of the mosques, the pavilions and
the towers of the gates, the balustraded roofs of the higher and finer
houses, the light foliage of acacias, and the dark crests of tall
date-palms. It is a new city, only two hundred and twenty-six years
old. Shah Jehan, its founder, was fond of splendor in building, was
lavish of expense, and was eager to make his city imperial in
appearance as in name. The great mosque that he built here is the
noblest and most beautiful in all India. His palace might be set in
comparison with that of Aladdin; it was the fulfilment of an Oriental
voluptuary's dream. All that Eastern taste could devise of beauty,
that Eastern lavishness could fancy of adornment, or voluptuousness
demand of luxury, was brought together and displayed here. But its day
of splendor was not long; and now, instead of furnishing a home to a
court, which, if wicked, was at least magnificent, it is the abode of
demoralized pensioners, who, having lost the reality, retain the pride
and the vices of power. For years it has been utterly given over to
dirt and to decay. Its beautiful halls and chambers, rich with marbles
and mosaics, its "Pearl" _musjid_, its delicious gardens, its
shady summer-houses, its fountains, and all its walks and
pleasure-grounds, are neglected, abused, and occupied by the filthy
retainers of an effete court.

The city stands partly on the sandy border of the river, partly on a
low range of rocks. With its suburbs it may contain about one hundred
and sixty thousand inhabitants, a little more than half of whom are
Hindoos, and the remainder nominally Mahometans, in creed. Around the
wall stretches a wide, barren, irregular plain, covered, mile after
mile, with the ruins of earlier Delhis, and the tombs of the great or
the rich men of the Mahometan dynasty. There is no other such
monumental plain as this in the world. It is as full of traditions and
historic memories as of ruins; and in this respect, as in many others,
Delhi bears a striking resemblance to Rome,--for the Roman Campagna is
the only field which in its crowd of memories may be compared with it,
and the imperial city of India holds in the Mahometan mind much the
same place that Rome occupies in that of the Christian.

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