latter days, a state-prisoner, by sufferance of his son Aurungzebe. The civil and military lines spread for some distance over the plains outside the city. Akbar himself lies buried in a noble mausoleum at Secundra, a few miles distant from Agra, so vast that Lord Lake was said to have quartered a regiment of Horse in its Arches. Mahommedans to this day visit this tomb with as much awe and reverence as if the great Emperor was almost divine. Twenty miles south-east from Agra, at Futtepore Sickri towers the great mosque, whose lofty gateways and vast quadrangle, still attest the architectural glories of Akbar's reign.

On the Jumna, thirty-five miles north-west of Agra, is Muttra, an old Hindoo city famed for its shrines and sacred monkeys. Many years ago two young English officers in sport wounded one of these sacred animals, which created such a commotion by the screams of his countless relatives, that the people rose in a frenzy of religious enthusiasm, and the Englishmen, to save themselves, forced their elephant to cross the river, but as the animal rolls in the water, only the mahout or driver reached the opposite bank. Muttra was also the favourite head-quarters of Madojee Scindia, the Pateil,* when he was supreme director and protector of the Emperor.

* Or beadle, or headman of a village as he loved to call himself in the plenitude of his power. This office in his native village was hereditary in his family.

CHAPTER XXI.

PROGRESS OF BRITISH RULE IN INDIA-Continued.

NORTH-WEST PROVINCES.

Shah Alam II.-Viceroy of Oude-Meer Cossim-Sumroo-Mahrattas -Golam Kadir-Scindia-Lord Lake-Bahadour Shah-Delhi and its vicissitudes-The Koh-i-noor and the Peacock Throne-Mahdajee Scindia-Daulat Rao Scindia-Holkar-Ochterlony-Alarm in the Palace-Mutineers-The King, the Captain of the Guard, and the Physician-Willoughby fires the Arsenal-Siege-Capture-Englishmen dine in Palace of Mogul-Hodson at Hoomayoon's tomb-Surrender of King and Princes-Grand reception to Prince of WalesProclamation of Empress.

AFTER the battles of Patna, Buxar and Guya, the Emperor Shah Alam II. resumed his residence at Allahabad, and the Viceroy of Oude had favourable terms granted him and nearly all his teritory restored. Meer Cossim fled despoiled and deserted by the viceroy and his former tool, Sumroo, for protection to the Rohillas, where he died; and Sumroo with the remnant of his force entered the service of the Rajah of Jeypore.

Soon after this the Emperor got tired of his modest retirement and mimic court, and was easily persuaded by the Mahrattas, who had reasons of their own for wishing to have the charge of the person of the sovereign, to

return to the palace of his ancestors at Delhi, and in 1771 contrary to the advice and urgent remonstrances of his English friends and protectors, Shah Alam accompanied Scindia to the imperial city, where he was received with great manifestations of loyalty and rejoicing, and was enthroned with every circumstance that could give splendour to so august a ceremonial.

The Maharattas were from 1771 to 1803 the masters of Hindostan, under Scindia, the Pateil, and his successor, but for a space the attention of this renowned warrior and crafty politician was absorbed in his attempts to achieve supremacy in the court of the Peishwah, as he had already succeeded in doing in that of the Emperor.

In this season of neglect, a wretch, Golam Kadir, an Afghan, aided by the discontent of the Mogul nobles, under the Maharatta rule, forced himself with his immediate followers into the palace and compelled the helpless emperor to appoint him his Vizier, the highest office in the state.

This atrocious ruffian having, it has been said, received at the hands of the emperor an irreparable wrong in his early youth, thirsted for revenge on the imperial house. No sooner was he installed in office than he filled the palace with those devoted to his interests. After grossly insulting the emperor and his family, he with his own hands blinded the aged monarch, tortured the princes, and outraged the sanctity of the haram in frantic attempts to obtain possession of fancied hidden treasure. After heaping every insult and degradation on the inmates of the palace, and having collected a vast amount of valuables, having robbed the ladies even of their personal

ornaments scared by the rumour of the too tardy approach of Scindia, Golam Kadir collected his booty, and after burning a portion of the palace, sought safety in flight, during the darkness of the night. This ferocious assassin came to a dreadful end. In a vain attempt to escape with the most valuable jewels, he fell from his horse and was secured by the country people and sent to Scindia, who had now resumed his functions as Lieutenant-General of the kingdom. After having been degraded and tortured in the most dreadful manner, his head was cut off and placed at the feet of the now blind, aged, prostrate emperor whom he had so remorselessly insulted and outraged so recently. Shah Alam remained poor and neglected by Scindia, until rescued by Lord Lake, in 1803. One of the grandsons who had been tortured in the presence of the emperor, was Bahadour Shah, who witnessed in his palace at Delhi in 1857, the massacre in cold blood of Englishmen, women and children.

Delhi. Nearly a thousand miles by road from Calcutta. For miles before the eye rests on the tall red sandstone walls and bastions of the city founded, or rather rebuilt by Shah-Jehán, the ground is covered with the ruins of former Delhis, or of the yet older Hindoo city of Indraprastha. Successive dynasties, Hindoo, Pathán, and Mogul, have left the traces of their olden splendour in or about the city, whose name to Englishmen will always recal at once the darkest and the brightest page in the history of our Indian Empire. From the day when Pritwi Rajah, the last Hindoo King of Delhi, fled before the onset of Muhammad Ghori's Afghan horsemen

in 1193 A.D., to the hour when Nicholson's stormers planted the British flag once more on the walls of the great rebel stronghold, in September, 1857, Delhi has lived on through a long train of chequered experiences such as perhaps no other of the world's chief cities can match. Every foot of ground within or around its walls is indeed historical. To tell of all that has happened there would be tantamount to writing the history of Hindustan. No other city, not even Rome herself, has witnessed such swift and frequent alternations of success and suffering, peace and bloodshed, greatness and humiliation, good government and fearful tyranny. In the fourteenth century it was well-nigh unpeopled, in order that Muhammad Toghlak might indulge his whim for transferring the seat of empire to the Deccan. Of course the attempt failed, and Delhi throve again under his humane successor, Feroze Shah. But the last days of that century beheld its streets piled with dead, and its houses gutted of their wealth, by order of the merciless conqueror Tímoor the lame.

For many years after 1450 the citizens had a long rest from suffering under the wise rule of Balól Lodi. Then came a time of further trouble, which ended in the conquest of Delhi by Báber, the brave, chivalrous and jovial founder of the Mogul dynasty, in 1526. During the long reign of his grandson Akbar, contemporary with our own Elizabeth, Delhi flourished as it had never done before. For about two centuries it continued to reflect the greatness and the splendid tastes of its Mogul rulers, from Akbar to Aurungzebe. Its outward glories culminated under Shah-Jelán, to whose princely tastes are due