Observations on the Mussulmauns of India

LETTER XIX

Kannoge.--For­mer­ly the cap­ital of Hin­doost­aun.--An­cient cas­tle.--Dura­bil­ity of the bricks made by the abo­rig­ines.--Prospect from the Kil­laah (cas­tle).--Ru­ins.--Trea­sures found there­in.--The Dur­gah Baallee Peer Kee.--Mukhbur­rahs.--An­cient Mosque.--Sin­gu­lar struc­ture of some stone pil­lars.--The Dur­gah Muk­doom Jhaunneer.--Con­ver­sions to the Mus­sul­maun Faith.--Anec­dote.--Ig­no­rance of the Hin­doos.--Sculp­ture of the An­cients.--Mosque in­hab­it­ed by thieves.--Dis­cov­ery of Ni­tre.--Method of ex­tract­ing it.--Con­jec­tures of its pro­duce.--Res­idence in the cas­tle.--Re­flec­tions.

Kannoge, now com­par­ative­ly a Na­tive vil­lage, sit­uat­ed about mid­way be­tween Cawn­pore and Fut­tyghur, is said to have been the cap­ital of Hin­doost­aun, and ac­cord­ing to Hin­doo tra­di­tion was the seat of the reign­ing Ra­jahs two thou­sand years pri­or to the in­va­sion of In­dia by the Sul­taun Tim­oor. If cred­it be giv­en to cur­rent re­port, the Hin­doos de­ny that the Del­uge ex­tend­ed to In­dia[1] as con­fi­dent­ly as the Chi­nese de­clare that it nev­er reached Chi­na.

These ac­counts I mere­ly state as the be­lief of the Hin­doos, and those the least ed­ucat­ed per­sons of the pop­ula­tion. The Mus­sul­mauns, how­ev­er, are of a dif­fer­ent opin­ion; the ac­count they give of the Del­uge re­sem­bles the Jew­ish, and doubt­less the in­for­ma­tion Mahu­mud has con­veyed to his fol­low­ers was de­rived from that source.

Some of the peo­ple are weak enough to con­jec­ture that Kannoge was found­ed by Cain.[2] It bears, how­ev­er, strik­ing fea­tures of great an­tiq­ui­ty, and pos­sess­es many suf­fi­cient ev­idences of its for­mer ex­tent and splen­dour to war­rant the be­lief that it has been the cap­ital of no mean king­dom in ages past. The re­marks I was en­abled to make dur­ing a res­idence of two years at Kannoge may not be deemed al­to­geth­er un­in­ter­est­ing to my read­ers, al­though my de­scrip­tions may be 'cloud­ed with im­per­fec­tions'. I will not, there­fore, of­fer any use­less apolo­gies for in­tro­duc­ing them in my present Let­ter.

Kannoge, known as the old­est cap­ital of the far-​famed king­dom of Hin­doost­aun, is now a heap up­on heap of ru­ins, pro­claim­ing to the present gen­er­ation, even in her hu­mil­ity, how vast in ex­tent and mag­nif­icent in style she once was, when in­hab­it­ed by the rulers of that great em­pire. The earth en­tombs em­blems of great­ness, of rich­es, and of man's vain-​glo­ri­ous pos­ses­sions; build­ings have been reared by suc­ces­sive gen­er­ations on mounds which em­bow­elled the ru­ined man­sions of pre­de­ces­sors.

The kil­laah[3] (cas­tle) in which dur­ing two years we shared an abode with sundry crows, bats, scor­pi­ons, cen­tipedes, and oth­er liv­ing things, was re­built about sev­en hun­dred years ago, on the orig­inal foun­da­tion which, as tra­di­tion states, has con­tin­ued for more than two thou­sand years. The ma­te­ri­als of which the walls are con­struct­ed are chiefly bricks.

It is wor­thy of re­mark, that the bricks of an­cient man­ufac­ture in In­dia give ev­idence of re­mark­able dura­bil­ity, and are very sim­ilar in qual­ity to the Ro­man bricks oc­ca­sion­al­ly dis­cov­ered in Eng­land. At Del­hi I have met with bricks that have been un­doubt­ed­ly stand­ing six or sev­en cen­turies; and at Kannoge, if tra­di­tion speak true, the same ar­ti­cles which were man­ufac­tured up­wards of two thou­sand years ago, and which re­tain the colour of the bright­est red, re­sem­ble more the hard­est stone than the things we call bricks of the present day. Af­ter the min­utest ex­am­ina­tion of these relics of an­cient labour, I am dis­posed to think that the clay must have been more close­ly knead­ed, and the bricks longer ex­posed to the ac­tion of fire than they are by the present mode of man­ufac­tur­ing them; and such is their dura­bil­ity, that they are on­ly bro­ken with the great­est dif­fi­cul­ty.

The kil­laah was orig­inal­ly a for­ti­fied cas­tle, and is sit­uat­ed near the riv­er Kaullee Nud­die,[4] a branch or arm of the Ganges, the main stream of which flows about two miles dis­tant. Dur­ing the pe­ri­od­ical rains, the Ganges over­flows its banks, and in­un­dates the whole tract of land in­ter­ven­ing be­tween the two rivers, form­ing an ex­tent of wa­ter more re­sem­bling a sea than a riv­er.

At the time we oc­cu­pied the old cas­tle, scarce­ly one room could be called hab­it­able; and I learned with re­gret af­ter the rains of 1826 and 1827, which were un­usu­al­ly heavy, that the apart­ments oc­cu­pied since the Hon­ourable East In­dia Com­pa­ny's rule by their taasseel-​dhaars,[5] (sub-​col­lec­tors of the rev­enue), were ren­dered en­tire­ly use­less as a res­idence.

The com­fort­less in­te­ri­or of that well-​re­mem­bered place was more than com­pen­sat­ed by the sit­ua­tion. Many of my En­glish ac­quain­tance, who hon­oured me by vis­its at Kannoge, will, I think, agree with me, that the prospect from the kil­laah was in­de­scrib­ably grand. The Ganges and the Kaullee Nud­dee were pre­sent­ed at one view; and at cer­tain sea­sons of the year, as far as the eye could reach, their banks, and well-​cul­ti­vat­ed fields, clothed in a va­ri­ety of green, seemed to re­call the mind to the rivers of Eng­land, and their pre­cious bor­ders of grate­ful herbage. Turn­ing in an­oth­er di­rec­tion, the eye was met by an im­pen­etra­ble bound­ary of for­est trees, mag­nif­icent in growth, and rich in fo­liage; at an­oth­er glance, ru­ins of an­tiq­ui­ty, or the still re­main­ing trib­utes to saints; the de­tached vil­lages; the sug­ar plan­ta­tions; the agri­cul­tur­ists at their labour; the hap­py peas­antry laden with their pur­chas­es from the bazaars; the Hin­doo wom­en and chil­dren, bear­ing their earth­en-​ves­sels to and from the riv­er for sup­plies of wa­ter:--each in their turn formed ob­jects of at­trac­tion from with­out, that more than re­paid the ab­sence of or­di­nary com­forts in the apart­ment from which they were viewed. The qui­et calm of this habi­ta­tion, un­bro­ken by the tu­mul­tuous sounds of a city, was so con­ge­nial to my taste, that when obliged to quit it, I felt al­most as much re­gret as when I heard that the rains had de­stroyed the place which had been to me a home of peace­ful en­joy­ment.

The city of Kannoge has ev­ident­ly suf­fered the sever­ities of a shock from an earth­quake: the present in­hab­itants can­not tell at what pe­ri­od this oc­curred, but it must have been some cen­turies since, for the earth is grown over im­mense ru­ins, in an ex­ten­sive cir­cuit, form­ing a strong but coarse car­pet of grass on the un­even mounds con­tain­ing the long-​buried man­sions of the great. The rapid streams from the pe­ri­od­ical rains forc­ing pas­sages be­tween the ru­ins, has in many places formed deep and fright­ful ravines, as well as rugged roads and path­ways for the cat­tle and the trav­eller.

Af­ter each heavy fall of rain, the peas­antry and chil­dren are ob­served minute­ly search­ing among the ru­ins for valu­ables washed out with the loose earth and bricks by the force of the streams, and, I am told, with suc­cess­ful re­turns for their toil; jew­els, gold and sil­ver or­na­ments, coins of gold and sil­ver, all of great an­tiq­ui­ty, are thus se­cured; these are bought by cer­tain mer­chants of the city, by whom they are re­tailed to En­glish trav­ellers, who gen­er­al­ly when on a riv­er voy­age to or from the Up­per Provinces, con­trive, if pos­si­ble, to vis­it Kannoge to in­spect the ru­ins, and pur­chase cu­riosi­ties.

There is a state­ly range of build­ings at no great dis­tance from the kil­laah (cas­tle), in a tol­er­able state of preser­va­tion, called 'Baallee Peer Kee Dur­gah'.[6] The en­trance is by a stone gate­way of very su­pe­ri­or but an­cient work­man­ship, and the gates of massy wood stud­ded with iron. I ob­served that on the wood frame­work over the en­trance, many a stray horse­shoe has been nailed, which served to re­mind me of Wales, where it is so com­mon­ly seen on the doors of the peas­antry.[7] I am not aware but that the same mo­tives may have in­flu­enced the two peo­ple in com­mon.

To the right of the en­trance stands a large mosque, which, I am told, was built by Baallee him­self; who, it is re­lat­ed, was a re­mark­ably pi­ous man of the Mus­sul­maun per­sua­sion, and had ac­quired so great celebri­ty amongst his coun­try­men as a per­fect dur­weish, as to be sur­named peer[8] (saint). The ex­act time when he flour­ished at Kannoge, I am un­able to say; but judg­ing from the style of ar­chi­tec­ture, and oth­er con­cur­ring cir­cum­stances, it must have been built at dif­fer­ent pe­ri­ods, some parts be­ing ev­ident­ly of very an­cient struc­ture.

There are two mukhbur­rahs,[9] with­in the range, which viewed from the main road, stand in a promi­nent sit­ua­tion: one of these mukhbur­rahs was built by com­mand, or in the reign (I could not learn which), of Shah Al­lumgeer [10] over the re­mains of Ballee Peer; and the sec­ond con­tains some of the peer's im­me­di­ate rel­atives.

From the ex­pen­sive man­ner in which these build­ings are con­struct­ed, some idea may be formed of the es­ti­ma­tion this pi­ous man was held in by his coun­try­men. The mau­soleums are of stone, and el­evat­ed on a base of the same ma­te­ri­al, with broad flights of steps to as­cend by. The stone must have been brought hith­er from a great dis­tance, as I do not find there is a sin­gle quar­ry near­er than Del­hi or Agra. There are peo­ple in charge of this Dur­gah who vol­un­tar­ily ex­ile them­selves from the so­ci­ety of the world, in or­der to lead lives of strict de­vo­tion and un­der the imag­ined pre­sid­ing in­flu­ence of the saint's pure spir­it; they keep the sanc­tu­ary from pol­lu­tion, burn lamps night­ly on the tomb, and sub­sist by the oc­ca­sion­al con­tri­bu­tions of the char­ita­ble vis­itors and their neigh­bours.

With­in the bound­ary of the Dur­gah, I re­marked a very neat stone tomb, in good preser­va­tion: this, I was told, was the bury­ing-​place of the Kalipha [11] (head ser­vant) who had at­tend­ed on and sur­vived Baallee Peer; this man had saved mon­ey in the ser­vice of the saint, which he left to be de­vot­ed to the re­pairs of the Dur­gah; premis­ing that his tomb should be erect­ed near that of his saint­ed mas­ter, and lamps burned ev­ery night over the graves, which is faith­ful­ly per­formed by the peo­ple in charge of the Dur­gah.

Af­ter vis­it­ing the ru­ins of Hin­doo tem­ples, which skirt the bor­ders of the riv­er in many parts of the dis­trict of Kannoge, the eye turns with sat­is­fac­tion to the an­cient mosques of the Mus­sul­mauns, which con­vey con­vic­tion to the mind, that even in the re­mote ages of Hin­doost­aun, there have been men who wor­shipped God; whilst the piles of mu­ti­lat­ed stone idols al­so de­clare the zeal­ous Mus­sul­maun to have been jeal­ous for his Cre­ator's glo­ry. I have no­ticed about Kannoge hun­dreds of these bro­ken or de­faced im­ages col­lect­ed to­geth­er in heaps (gen­er­al­ly un­der trees), which were for­mer­ly the ob­jects to which the su­per­sti­tious Hin­doos bowed in wor­ship, un­til the more in­tel­li­gent Mus­sul­mauns strayed in­to the re­cess­es of the deep­est dark­ness to show the idol­aters that God could not be rep­re­sent­ed by a block of stone.

In a re­tired part of Kannoge, I was in­duced to vis­it the re­mains of an im­mense build­ing[12], ex­pect­ing the grat­ifi­ca­tion of a fine prospect from its tow­er­ing el­eva­tion; my sur­prise, how­ev­er, on en­ter­ing the por­tal drove from my thoughts the first ob­ject of my vis­it.

The whole build­ing is on a large scale, and is, to­geth­er with the gate­way, steps, roof, pil­lars, and of­fices, com­posed en­tire­ly of stone: from what I had pre­vi­ous­ly con­ceived of the an­cient Jew­ish tem­ples, this erec­tion struck me as bear­ing a strong re­sem­blance. It ap­pears that there is not the slight­est por­tion of ei­ther wood or met­al used in the whole con­struc­tion; and, ex­cept where some sort of ce­ment was in­dis­pens­able, not a trace of mor­tar is to be dis­cov­ered in the whole fab­ric. The pil­lars of the colon­nade, which form three sides of the square, are sin­gu­lar piles of stone, erect­ed with great ex­act­ness in the fol­low­ing or­der:--

A broad block of stone forms the base; on the cen­tre is raised a pil­lar of six feet by two square, on this rests a cir­cu­lar stone, re­sem­bling a grind­stone, on which is placed an­oth­er up­right pil­lar, and again a cir­cu­lar, un­til five of each are made to rest on the base to form a pil­lar; the top cir­cu­lars or caps are much larg­er than the rest; and on these the massy stone beams for the roof are sup­port­ed. How these pon­der­ous stones form­ing the whole roof were raised, un­ac­quaint­ed as these peo­ple ev­er have been with ma­chin­ery, is in­deed a mys­tery suf­fi­cient to im­press on the weak-​mind­ed a cur­rent re­port amongst the Na­tives, that the whole build­ing was erect­ed in one night by su­per­nat­ural agen­cy, from ma­te­ri­als which had for­mer­ly been used in the con­struc­tion of a Hin­doo tem­ple, but de­stroyed by the zeal of the Mus­sul­mauns soon af­ter their in­va­sion of Hin­doost­aun.

The pil­lars I ex­am­ined nar­row­ly, and could not find any traces of ce­ment or fas­ten­ing; yet, ex­cept­ing two or three which ex­hib­it a slight curve, the whole colon­nade is in a per­fect state. The hall, in­clud­ing the colon­nade, mea­sures one hun­dred and eighty feel by thir­ty, and has doubt­less been, at some time or oth­er, a place of wor­ship, in all prob­abil­ity for the Mus­sul­mauns, there be­ing still with­in the ed­ifice a sort of pul­pit of stone ev­ident­ly in­tend­ed for the read­er, both from its sit­ua­tion and con­struc­tion; this has sus­tained many rude ef­forts from the chis­el in the way of or­na­ment not strict­ly in ac­cor­dance with the tem­ple it­self; be­sides which, there are cer­tain tablets en­graved in the Per­sian and Ara­bic char­ac­ter, which con­tain vers­es or chap­ters from the Kho­raun; so that it may be con­clud­ed, what­ev­er was the orig­inal de­sign of the build­ing, it has in lat­er pe­ri­ods served the pur­pos­es of a mosque.

In some parts of this build­ing traces ex­ist to prove that the ma­te­ri­als of which it has been formed orig­inal­ly be­longed to the Hin­doos, for up­on many of the stones there are carved fig­ures ac­cord­ing with their mythol­ogy; such stones, how­ev­er, have been placed gen­er­al­ly up­side down, and at­tempts to de­face the graven fig­ures are con­spic­uous,--they are all turned in­side, whilst the ex­te­ri­or ap­pear­ance is rough and un­even. It may be pre­sumed they were for­mer­ly out­ward or­na­ments to a tem­ple of some sort, most like­ly a 'Bootkhanah'[13] (the house for idols).

I have vis­it­ed the Dur­gah, called Mukhdoom Jhaaun­neer[14], sit­uat­ed in the heart of the present city, which is said to have been erect­ed near­ly a thou­sand years ago, by the or­der of a Mus­sul­maun King; whether of Hin­doost­aun or not, I could not learn. It bears in its present di­lap­idat­ed state, ev­idences both of good taste and su­pe­ri­or skill in ar­chi­tec­ture, as well as of cost­li­ness in the erec­tion, su­pe­ri­or to any thing I ex­pect­ed to find amongst the an­cient ed­ifices of Hin­doost­aun.

The an­tique arch­es sup­port­ing the roof, rest on pil­lars of a good size; the whole are beau­ti­ful­ly carved. The dome, which was orig­inal­ly in the cen­tre of this pavil­ion, has been near­ly de­stroyed by time; and al­though the light thus thrown in­to the in­te­ri­or through the aper­ture, has a good ef­fect, it pained me to see this no­ble ed­ifice falling to de­cay for the want of time­ly re­pairs. Notwith­stand­ing this Dur­gah is said to have been built so many years, the stone-​work, both of the in­te­ri­or and ex­te­ri­or, is re­mark­ably fresh in ap­pear­ance, and would al­most dis­cred­it its re­put­ed age. The walls and bas­tions of the en­clo­sure ap­pear firm on their foun­da­tions; the up­per part on­ly seems at all de­cayed.

The side rooms to the Dur­gah, of which there are sev­er­al on each side of the build­ing, have all a fret­work of stone very cu­ri­ous­ly cut, which serves for win­dows, and ad­mits light and air to the apart­ments, and presents a good screen to per­sons with­in; this it should seem was the on­ly con­trivance for win­dows in gen­er­al use by the an­cient in­hab­itants of Hin­doost­aun; and even at the present day (ex­cept­ing a few Na­tive gen­tle­men who have ben­efit­ed by En­glish ex­am­ple), glazed win­dows are not seen in any of the man­sions in the Up­per Provinces of In­dia.

I no­ticed that in a few places in these build­ings, where the prospect is par­tic­ular­ly fine, small arch­es were left open, from whence the eye is di­rect­ed to grand and su­perb scenery, af­ford­ed by the sur­round­ing coun­try, and the re­mains of state­ly build­ings. From one of these arch­es the kil­laah is seen to great ad­van­tage, at the dis­tance of two miles: both the Dur­gah and the kil­laah are erect­ed on high points of land. I have of­ten, whilst wan­der­ing out­side the kil­laah, looked up at the el­eva­tion with sen­sa­tions of mis­trust, that whilst do­ing so it might, from its known in­se­cure state, fall and bury me in its ru­ins; but view­ing it from that dis­tance, and on a lev­el with the Dur­gah, the ap­pear­ance was re­al­ly grat­ify­ing.

At Kannoge are to be seen many mukhbur­rahs, said to have been erect­ed over the re­mains of those Hin­doos who at dif­fer­ent pe­ri­ods had been con­vert­ed to the Mus­sul­maun faith. This city, I am in­formed, has been the cho­sen spot of righ­teous men and saint­ed char­ac­ters dur­ing all pe­ri­ods of the Mus­sul­maun rule in Hin­doost­aun, by whose ex­am­ple many idol­ators were brought to have re­spect for the name of God, and in some in­stances even to em­brace the Mahu­mu­dan faith. Amongst the many ac­counts of re­mark­able con­ver­sions re­lat­ed to me by the old in­hab­itants of that city, I shall se­lect one which, how­ev­er mar­vel­lous in some points, is nev­er­the­less re­ceived with full cred­it by the faith­ful of the present day:--

'A very pi­ous Syaad took up his res­idence many hun­dred years since at Kannoge, when the chief part of the in­hab­itants were Hin­doos, and, as might be ex­pect­ed, many of them were Brah­mins. He saw with grief the state of dark­ness with which the minds of so many hu­man be­ings were im­bued, and with­out ex­er­cis­ing any sort of au­thor­ity over them, he en­deav­oured by the mildest per­sua­sions to con­vince these peo­ple that the ado­ra­tion they paid to graven im­ages, and the views they en­ter­tained of the riv­er Ganges pos­sess­ing di­vine prop­er­ties, were both ab­surd and wicked.

'The Syaad used his best ar­gu­ments to ex­plain to them the pow­er and at­tributes of the on­ly true God; and though his labours were un­ceas­ing, and his ex­em­plary life made him beloved, yet for a long pe­ri­od all his en­deav­ours proved un­suc­cess­ful. His ad­vice, how­ev­er, was at all times ten­dered with mild­ness, his man­ners so hum­ble, and his de­vo­tion so re­mark­able, that in the course of time the peo­ple flocked around him, when­ev­er he was vis­ible, to lis­ten to his dis­course, which gen­er­al­ly con­tained some words of well-​timed ex­hor­ta­tion and kind in­struc­tion. His great aim was di­rect­ed to­wards en­light­en­ing the Brah­mins, by whom, he was aware, the opin­ions of the whole pop­ula­tion were in­flu­enced, and to whom alone was con­fined such knowl­edge as at that re­mote pe­ri­od was con­veyed by ed­uca­tion.

'Ar­dent­ly zeal­ous in the great work he had com­menced, the Syaad seemed un­daunt­ed by the many ob­sta­cles he had to con­tend with. Al­ways re­tain­ing his tem­per un­ruf­fled, he com­bined per­se­ver­ance with his so­lic­itude, and trust­ed in God for a hap­py re­sult in His good time. On an oc­ca­sion of a great Hin­doo fes­ti­val the pop­ula­tion of the then im­mense city were prepar­ing to vis­it the Ganges, where they ex­pect­ed to be pu­ri­fied from their sins by ablu­tion in that holy riv­er, as they term it. The Ganges, at that pe­ri­od, I un­der­stand, flowed some miles dis­tant from the city.

'The Syaad took this oc­ca­sion to ex­hort the mul­ti­tude to be­lieve in God; and af­ter a pre­lim­inary dis­course, ex­plain­ing the pow­er of Him whom he alone wor­shipped, he asked the peo­ple if they would be per­suad­ed to fol­low the on­ly true God, if His pow­er should be demon­strat­ed to them by the ap­pear­ance of the riv­er they adored flow­ing past the city of Kannoge, in­stead of, as at that mo­ment, many miles dis­tant. Some of his au­di­to­ry laughed at the idea, and de­rid­ed the speak­er; oth­ers doubt­ed, and asked whether the God whom the Mus­sul­mauns wor­shipped pos­sessed such pow­er as the Syaad had at­tribut­ed to Him; many Brah­mins, how­ev­er, agreed to the terms pro­posed, solemn­ly as­sur­ing the holy man he should find them con­verts to his faith if this mir­acle should be ef­fect­ed by the God he wor­shipped.

'It is re­lat­ed that the Syaad passed the whole day and night in de­vout prayers; and when the morn­ing dawned the idol­ators saw the riv­er Ganges flow­ing past the city in all the majesty of that mighty stream.[15] The Brah­mins were at once con­vinced, and this ev­idence of God's pow­er worked the way to the con­ver­sion of near­ly the whole pop­ula­tion of Kannoge.'

The num­ber of the in­hab­itants may be sup­posed to have been im­mense­ly great at the pe­ri­od in ques­tion, as it is re­lat­ed that on the oc­ca­sion of their con­ver­sion the Brah­mins threw away the cords which dis­tin­guish them from oth­er castes of Hin­doos, (each cord weigh­ing about a drachm En­glish), which when col­lect­ed to­geth­er to be con­signed to the flames, were weighed, and found to be up­wards of forty-​five seers; a seer in that province be­ing near­ly equal to two pounds En­glish.[16]

The Brah­mins, it will be rec­ol­lect­ed, form but a small por­tion of that com­mu­ni­ty, and are the priest­hood of the Hin­doos, very sim­ilar in their or­der to the Levites among the chil­dren of Is­rael.

There are still re­main­ing traces of mon­uments erect­ed over the re­mains of con­vert­ed Hin­doos, which have been par­tic­ular­ly point­ed out to me by in­tel­li­gent men, from whom I have re­ceived in­for­ma­tion of that great work which alone would ren­der Kannoge a place of in­ter­est with­out an­oth­er ob­ject to at­tract the ob­ser­va­tion of a re­flect­ing mind.

Notwith­stand­ing that the Ganges con­tin­ues to wa­ter the banks of Kannoge, and that oth­er proofs ex­ist of idol­atry hav­ing ceased for a con­sid­er­able time to dis­grace the in­hab­itants, it is still par­tial­ly oc­cu­pied by Hin­doos, who re­tain the cus­tom of their fore­fa­thers ac­cord­ing to the orig­inal, whether de­scen­dants of the con­vert­ed, or fresh set­tlers is not in my pow­er to de­ter­mine; but I may re­mark, with­out prej­udice, from what I have been en­abled to glean in con­ver­sa­tion with a few Hin­doos of this city, that they have a bet­ter idea of one over-​rul­ing Supreme pow­er than I have ev­er been able to find else­where in the same class of peo­ple.

I was much in­ter­est­ed with an old black­smith, who was em­ployed at the kil­laah. On one oc­ca­sion I asked him what views he en­ter­tained of the Source from whence all good pro­ceeds--whether he be­lieved in God? He replied prompt­ly, and as if sur­prised that such a doubt could ex­ist, 'Yes, sure­ly; it is to Al­lah (God) the supreme, I am in­debt­ed for my ex­is­tence; Al­lah cre­at­ed all things, the world and all that is in it: I could not have been here at this mo­ment, but for the good­ness of Al­lah!'

There are amongst them men of good moral char­ac­ter, yet in a state of de­plorable ig­no­rance, a spec­imen of which may be here no­ticed in a per­son of prop­er­ty em­ployed in the ser­vice of Gov­ern­ment, at the kil­laah; he is of the caste de­nom­inat­ed Burghutt[17],--one of the tribe which pro­fess­es so great rev­er­ence for life, as to hold it sin­ful to de­stroy the mean­est rep­tile or in­sect; and, there­fore, en­tire­ly ab­stain from eat­ing ei­ther fish, flesh, or fowl:--yet, when I pressed for his undis­guised opin­ion, I found that he not on­ly de­nied the ex­is­tence of God, but de­clared it was his be­lief the world formed it­self.

I was in­duced to walk three miles from the kil­laah, on a cool day in De­cem­ber, to view the re­mains of a piece of sculp­ture of great an­tiq­ui­ty. I con­fess my­self but lit­tle ac­quaint­ed with Hin­doo mythol­ogy, and there­fore my de­scrip­tion will nec­es­sar­ily be im­per­fect. The fig­ure of Luchmee is rep­re­sent­ed in re­lief, on a slab of stone eight feet by four, sur­round­ed by about a hun­dred fig­ures in dif­fer­ent at­ti­tudes. Luchmee, who is of course the most promi­nent, is fig­ured with eight arms; in his right hands, are sabres, in his left, shields; his left foot up­on the hand of a fe­male, and the right on a snake.[18] This fig­ure is about four feet high, and fine­ly formed, stand­ing in a mar­tial at­ti­tude; his dress (un­like that of the mod­ern Hin­doo) is rep­re­sent­ed very tight, and, al­to­geth­er, struck me as more re­sem­bling the Eu­ro­pean than the Asi­at­ic: on his head I re­marked a high-​crowned mil­itary cap with­out a peak: the feet were bare. There can be no doubt this fig­ure is em­blem­at­ical; the Hin­doos, how­ev­er, make it an ob­ject of their im­pure and de­grad­ing wor­ship.

I could not help ex­press­ing my sur­prise on find­ing this idol in such ex­cel­lent con­di­tion, hav­ing had so many sam­ples through­out Kannoge of the vengeance ex­er­cised by Mus­sul­maun zeal, on the idols of the Hin­doos. My guide as­sured me, that this rel­ic of an­tiq­ui­ty had on­ly been spared from the gen­er­al de­struc­tion of by-​gone pe­ri­ods by its hav­ing been buried, through the sup­posed in­flu­ence of un­con­vert­ed ven­er­at­ing Brah­mins; but that with­in the last thir­ty years it had been dis­cov­ered and dug out of the earth, to be­come once more an or­na­ment to the place. My own ideas lead me to sup­pose that it might have been buried by the same con­vul­sion of the earth which over­turned the idol­atrous city.

I ob­served that a very neat lit­tle build­ing, of mod­ern date, was erect­ed over this an­tiq­ui­ty, and on in­quiry found that the Hin­doos were in­debt­ed to the lib­er­al­ity of a la­dy for the means of pre­serv­ing this rel­ic from the rav­ages of the sea­sons.

There is in the same vicin­ity a sec­ond piece of mytho­log­ical sculp­ture, in a less per­fect state than Luchmee, the sabred arm of which has been struck off, and the fig­ure oth­er­wise mu­ti­lat­ed by the zeal­ous Mus­sul­mauns, who have in­vari­ably de­faced or bro­ken the idols wher­ev­er they have been able to do so with im­puni­ty. On a plat­form of stone and earth, near this place, a fine­ly-​formed head of stone is placed, which my guide grave­ly as­sured me was of very an­cient date, and rep­re­sent­ed Adam, the fa­ther of men!

I heard with pain dur­ing my so­journ at Kannoge, that the house of God had been made the re­sort of thieves; a well-​known pas­sage of Scrip­ture struck me forcibly when the trans­ac­tion was re­lat­ed.

I have be­fore stat­ed that the mosque is nev­er al­lowed to be locked or closed to the pub­lic. Be­neath the one I am about to speak of (a very an­cient build­ing near to Baallee Peer's Dur­gah), is a vault­ed suite of rooms de­nom­inat­ed taarkhanah[19], in­tend­ed as a re­treat from the in­tense heat of the day; such as is to be met with in most great men's res­idences in In­dia. In this place, a gang of thieves from the city had long found a se­cure and un­sus­pect­ed spot where­in to de­posit their plun­der. It hap­pened, how­ev­er, that very strict search was in­sti­tut­ed af­ter some stolen prop­er­ty be­long­ing to an in­di­vid­ual of Kannoge; whether any sus­pi­cions had been ex­cit­ed about the place in ques­tion, I do not rec­ol­lect, but thith­er the po­lice di­rect­ed their steps, and af­ter re­mov­ing some loose earth they dis­cov­ered many valu­able ar­ti­cles,--shawls, gold or­na­ments, sabres, and oth­er cost­ly ar­ti­cles of plun­der. It is pre­sumed,--for the thieves were not known or dis­cov­ered,--that they could not pos­si­bly be Mus­sul­mauns, since the very worst char­ac­ters among this peo­ple hold the house of God in such strict ven­er­ation, that they, of all per­sons, could not be sus­pect­ed of hav­ing se­lect­ed so sa­cred a place to de­posit the spoils of the plun­der­er.

The pro­cess of ob­tain­ing ni­tre from the earth is prac­tised at Kannoge by the Na­tives in the most sim­ple way imag­in­able, with­out any as­sis­tance from art. They dis­cov­er the spot where ni­tre is de­posit­ed by the small white par­ti­cles which work through the stra­ta of earth to the sur­face. When a vein is dis­cov­ered, to sep­arate the ni­tre from the earth, the fol­low­ing sim­ple method is re­sort­ed to:--large troughs filled with wa­ter are pre­pared, in­to which the mass­es of earth con­tain­ing ni­tre are thrown; the earth is al­lowed to re­main undis­turbed for some time, af­ter which it is well stirred, and then al­lowed to set­tle; the wa­ter by this means be­comes im­preg­nat­ed with the ni­tre, and is af­ter­wards boiled in large iron pans, from which all the dirt is care­ful­ly skimmed, un­til the wa­ter is com­plete­ly evap­orat­ed, and the ni­tre de­posit­ed in the pans.

I know not how far the ad­mix­ture of an­imal bod­ies with the soil may tend to pro­duce this ar­ti­cle, but it is a fact, that those places which bear the strongest proofs of hav­ing re­ceived the bod­ies of both men and beasts, pro­duce it in the great­est abun­dance.[20]

The re­tire­ment of Kannoge af­ford­ed me so many pleas­ant ways of oc­cu­py­ing time, that I al­ways look back to the pe­ri­od of my so­journ at the old kil­laah with sat­is­fac­tion. The city is suf­fi­cient­ly dis­tant from the kil­laah to leave the lat­ter with­in reach of sup­plies, with­out the an­noy­ance of the bus­tle and con­fu­sion in­sep­ara­ble from a Na­tive city. In my dai­ly wan­der­ings a few peas­antry on­ly crossed my path; the farm­ers and cit­izens were al­ways at­ten­tive, and will­ing to do us such kind of­fices as we at any time re­quired. They re­spect­ed, I may say ven­er­at­ed my hus­band; and I must own that my feel­ings oblige me to re­mem­ber with grat­itude the place and the peo­ple whence I drew so many ben­efits.

Here I could in­dulge in long walks with­out in­cur­ring the penal­ty of a de­par­ture from es­tab­lished cus­tom, which in most well-​pop­ulat­ed parts of Hin­doost­aun re­strains Eu­ro­pean ladies from the ex­er­cise so con­ge­nial to their health and cher­ished habits. Should any En­glish-​wom­an ven­ture to walk abroad in the city of Luc­know, for in­stance,--to ex­press their most lib­er­al opin­ion of the act,--she would be judged by the Na­tives as a per­son care­less of the world's opin­ion. But here I was un­der no such con­straint; my walks were dai­ly recre­ations af­ter hours of qui­et study in the most ro­man­tic re­tire­ment of a ru­ined kil­laah, where, if lux­ury con­sists in per­fect sat­is­fac­tion with the ob­jects by which we are sur­round­ed, I may boast that it was found here dur­ing my two years' res­idence.

[1] This is in­cor­rect. Hin­du tra­di­tions re­fer to a del­uge, in which Manu, with the help of a fish, makes a ship, and fas­ten­ing her ca­ble to the fish's horn, is guid­ed to the moun­tain, and then he, alone of hu­man be­ings, is saved.--J. Muir, _Orig­inal San­skrit Texts_, part ii (1860), p. 324.

[2] This is mere­ly a stupid folk et­ymol­ogy, com­par­ing Kanauj with Cain.

[3] _Qil'a_.

[4] Kali Na­di, 'black stream', a cor­rup­tion of the orig­inal name, Kalin­di.

[5] _Tah­sil­dar_.

[6] In the south­ern cen­tre of the ru­ined citadel stand the tombs of Bala Pir and his son, Shaikh Mah­di. Shaikh Kabir, com­mon­ly called Bala Pir, is said to have been the tu­tor of the broth­er Nawabs, Dalel and Ba­hadur Khan. The for­mer ruled Kanauj in the time of Shah Ja­han (A.D. 1628-1651), and died af­ter his de­po­si­tion in 1666.--A. Führer, _Mon­umen­tal An­tiq­ui­ties and In­scrip­tions of the N.W. Provinces and Oudh_, 1891, p. 80.

[7] Horse­shoes are of­ten nailed on the gates of the tombs of Musalman saints, as at the mosque of Fateh­pur Sikri.

[8] _Pir_, 'a saint, a holy man'.

[9] _Maqbara_, 'a sepul­chre'.

[10] The Em­per­or Au­rangzeb, A.D. 1658-1707.

[11] Khal­ifah, Caliph, one of the terms which have suf­fered degra­da­tion, of­ten ap­plied to cooks, tai­lors, bar­bers, or oth­er Musalman ser­vants.

[12] This may be the build­ing known as Si­ta ki Ra­soi, the kitchen of Si­ta, hero­ine of the Ra­mayana epic. It is de­scribed and drawn by Mrs. F. Parks (_Wan­der­ings of a Pil­grim_, ii. 143).

[13] Butkhana.

[14] The tomb of the Saint Sa'id Shaikh Makhdum Ja­haniya Ja­hangasht of Mul­tan (A.D. 1308-81). Führer, _op. cit._, p. 81.

[15] Many saints are cred­it­ed with the pow­er of chang­ing the cours­es of rivers: see in­stances in W. Crooke, _Pop­ular Re­li­gion and Folk­lore of N. In­dia_, 2nd ed., ii. 218.

[16] This may be a vari­ant of the sto­ry that af­ter the cap­ture of Chi­tor, Ak­bar weighed 74-1/2 _man_ (8 lbs. each) of cords be­long­ing to the slain Ra­jputs.--J. Tod, _An­nals of Ra­jasthan_, 1884, i. 349.

[17] The name has not been traced. The ref­er­ence is to Jains, who are spe­cial­ly care­ful of an­imal life.

[18] If this is a male fig­ure it can­not rep­re­sent the god­dess Lak­sh­mi. Mrs. Parks (_Wan­der­ings of a Pil­grim_, ii. 144) speaks of im­ages of Ra­ma and his broth­er Lak­sh­mana, one of which may pos­si­bly be that re­ferred to in the text.

[19] _Tahkhana_, an un­der­ground cel­lar.

[20] This ac­count is fair­ly cor­rect. 'Al­though ac­tive salt­pe­tre is met with un­der a va­ri­ety of con­di­tions, they all agree in this par­tic­ular, that the salt is formed un­der the in­flu­ence of or­gan­ic mat­ter.'--(G. Watt, _Eco­nom­ic Dic­tio­nary_, VI, part ii, 431 _ff_).