62 hord Curzon [Feb. 



arch under which the Viceroy of the day was to pass. James Fer- 

 ^ussou's books sound one unending note of passionate protest against 

 the bari-ack-builder, and the military engineer. I must confess that I 

 think these individuals have been, and within the more restricted scope 

 now left to them, still are inveterate sinners. Climb the hill top at 

 Gwalior and see the barracks of the British soldiers, and the relics, not 

 yet entirely obliterated, of his occupation of the Palace in the Fort. 

 Read in the Delhi guide-books of the horrors that have been per- 

 petrated in the interests of regimental barracks and messes and canteens 

 in the fairy-like pavilions and courts and gardens of Shah Jehan, It is 

 not yet 30 years since the Government of India were invited by a 

 number of array doctors to cut off the battlements of the Fort at Delhi, 

 in order to improve the health of the troops, and only desisted from 

 doing so when a rival band of medical doctrinaires appeared upon the 

 scene to urge tlid retention of the very same battlements, in order to 

 prevent malarial fever from creeping in. At an earlier date when 

 picnic-parties were held in the gai^en of the Taj, it was not an un- 

 common thing for the revellers to arm themselves with hammer and 

 chisel, with which they wiled away the afternoon by chipping out 

 fragments of agate and carnelian from the cenotaphs of the Emperor 

 and his lamented Queen. Indeed when I was at Agra the other day, I 

 found that the marble tomb of Shah Jehan in the lower vault, beneath 

 which his body actually lies, was still destitute of much of its original 

 inlay, of which I oidered the restoration. 



That the era of vandalism is not yet completely at an end is evident 

 from recent experiences, among which I may include my own. When 

 Fergusson wrote his book, the Diwan-i-Am, or Public Hall of Audience, 

 in the Palace at Delhi was a military arsenal, the outer colonnades of 

 which had been built up with brick arches lightened by English 

 windows. All this was afterwards removed. But when the Prince of 

 Wales came to India in 1876, and held a Durbar in this building, the 

 opportunity was too good to be lost ; and a fresh coat of whitewash was 

 plentifully bespattered over the red sandstone pillars and plinths of the 

 Durbar-hall of Aurungzeb. This too I hope to get removed. When 

 His Royal Highness was at Agra, and the various pavilions of Shah 

 Jehan's palace were connected together for the purposes of an evening 

 party and ball, local talent was called in to reproduce the faded paint- 

 ings on marble and plaster of the Moghul artists two and a half 

 centuries before. The result of their labours is still an eyesore and a 

 regret. When I was at Lahore in April last, I fcund the exquisite littlo 

 Moti Musjid, or Pearl Mosque, in the Fort, which was erected by 

 Jehangir exactly three hundred years ago, still used for the profane 



