g line of Moghul Emperors who first under Baber and then under Akbar
won the Empire of Hindustan at the gates of Delhi, and for a time
succeeded in bringing almost the whole of India under their sway. But
their splendid marble halls in the great Fort of Delhi recall not only
the magnificence of the Moghul Empire, but its slow and sure decay,
until it became a suitor for the protection of the British power, which,
at first a mere trading power that had once sued humbly enough for its
protection, had risen to be the greatest military and political power
in India. It was at Delhi at the beginning of the nineteenth century
that Lord Lake rescued a Moghul Emperor from the hands of Mahratta
jailers, and it was at Delhi again that in 1857 the last semblance of
Moghul rulership disappeared out of history in the tempest of the
Mutiny. It was on the plain of Delhi that the assumption by Queen
Victoria of the imperial title was solemnly proclaimed in 1878, and,
with still greater pomp, King Edward's accession in 1903. There again in
1911 King George, the first of his line to visit his Indian Empire as
King-Emperor, received in person the fealty of princes and peoples and
restored Delhi to her former pride of place as its imperial capital.

Where else in the world can such a procession of the ages pass before
one's eyes, from the great "Horse Sacrifice" of the Pandavas at the dawn
of history to the inauguration by a British prince in the King-Emperor's
name of modern political institutions conceived in the democratic spirit
of British freedom?

Yet at the very time when an Indian-elected assembly, representing as
far as possible all creeds and classes and communities, and above all
the Western-educated classes who are the intellectual offspring of
British rule, were gathered together to hear delivered to them in
English--the one language in which, as a result of British rule, and by
no means the least valuable, Indians from all parts of a vast polyglot
country are able to hold converse--the Royal message throwing open to
the people of India the road to _Swaraj_ within the British Empire, the
imperial city of Delhi went into mourning as a sign of angry protest,
and the vast majority of its citizens, mostly, it must be remembered,
Mahomedans, very strictly observed a complete boycott of the Royal visit
in accordance with Mr. Gandhi's "Non-co-operation" campaign, and went
out in immense crowds to greet the strange Hindu saint and lead