Were comfortable; and no one found any fault at the absence of the
splendors with which they had been surrounded in the palace of the
Guicowar, or even those of Bombay.
A good breakfast was obtained, and the forenoon
was given up to rest; but after a couple
of hours in their chambers the company were
assembled in the
coffee-room. "Delhi is a city which figures
largely in the history of India," said Lord Tremlyn, seated very
informally in an arm-chair. "It existed fifteen or twenty centuries
before the time of Christ, and was the capital of the great Aryan
empire. It was founded by the invaders of India. The chronology of
India is not reliable, but it is claimed
that this event
dates back to 3101 B.C. Its name was Indrapechta, which it holds to
the present time among the learned Hindus, so that the
city appears to have existed while Egypt was still in its infancy.
"It became the great Mussulman capital; but one and another
of its princes changed its location, till its ancient sites extend
for thirty miles along the river,
and its ruins, more extensive than even those of Rome, cover this
range of territory.
But I shall not go into the details
of those migratory
periods, but speak only of the city as we find it. "Delhi is on the
Jumna River, which you saw in the early morning. This stream has its
entire course in Hindustan, and is
the principal tributary of the Ganges. Both of these rivers are
sacred with the natives. The Jumna rises in the Himalayas, at a
height of nearly eleven thousand feet, and
of course it is a mountain torrent at its upper waters. After a run
of eight hundred and sixty miles, it falls into the Ganges about
three miles below Allahabad. On each side of it is an importa