There is only one city in the world which can claim as much glory as Delhi.  This city is Rome, the capital of the old European world.  But still, Rome, the eternal city as it is proudly called, with 26 centuries for existence behind it, can hardly measure upto the old Indraprastha, the capitals of the Indo-Aryan empire, 15 or 20 centuries before the advent of our era. 

But there is a basis difference between the two cities.  Whereas Rome offers the spectacle of a city which grew slowly till it became, by the ambition of its citizens, the mistress of the world, Delhi seems to have had just the contrary fate.  Created by foreign invaders it was disputed and taken, in turn, by different invaders who were attracted by the splendours of the land…. 

After having taken possession of the room allotted to us at the rent of one rupee a day, I came out of the bungalow and directed myself in the company of Schaumburg towards the mosque, the holy Jama Masjid, one of the most venerated and admired monuments of the Muslims of Central Asia and India. 

The entirely red sandstone edifice is placed on a huge terrace.  Three magnificient pyramidal flights of steps lead to the summit of this terrace, each one of them terminating in a monumental gate. 

On the third side of the gates there is a beautiful courtyard paved with marble flagstones and surrounded with monastery like cloisters which have the appearance of rare elegance and lightness.  The courtyard is adorned at the centre with a large water pool meant for the ablutions of the faithfuls.  At one end of this courtyard extends the long façade of the mosque: a beautiful row of narrow and low arches acting as frames for a tall portal in gothic alcove form.  The three white marble domes are of considerable proportions, when one takes into account the small height of the façade and have black ribs on them.  These domes crown the edifice which is flanked by two superb minarets striped longitudinally with while marble and rose sandstones and which, in turn lift in the air to a height of 40 metres each a cupola of white marble.

In the past no European could enter inside the mosque, but since 1857 this restriction has been removed.  An old mullah took us around the mosque.  He proposed that we climb one of the minarets in order to enjoy the view from the summit.  The tiredness that one feels while climbing the hundred and one steps of so narrow a staircase that permits with difficulty the passage of one man was well compensated by the sight from the top.

Seated under the small marble cupola, I let my eyes wander over one of the most interesting panorama.  At my feet spread out the modern city, the Shahjahanabad, with its terraced houses in the midst of which meandered the narrow lanes filled with a busy crowd, with its numerous mosques and palaces which are today deserted or transformed into barracks.  Beyond the ramparts of the fort extended a vast sandy uniform plain bracketed in the west by a line of greyish rocks and in the east by the large bed of the blue Jamuna….

The crowd filling at any moment of the day the street of Chandni Chowk is the most interesting one to study. The type which deserves most the attention is the natives of Delhi:Hindus and Muslims are distinguished by a certain elegance, a care of their person, which is reminiscent of the influence that the long sojourn of the Mughal court had on this city. Their physionomies are alive and intelligent.  They are police and kindly towards foreigners, though one should not have very high opinion of this very superficial quality vis-à-vis the Europeans.  Their women are also very elegantly dressed: the Hindu women in coloured saris and pleated peticoats, the Muslim women in floating jackets and in pants which are tight at the ankle.

At a distance one comes across a serious looking Mirza.  He has on his head a kind of high and gilded biretta.  He walks with a melancholic look on him in the company of ravishing children with big black eyes.  The title of Mirza is given to the members of the former Imperial family.  The majority of those who have been given authorisation to stay in Delhi are only the distant relatives of the last Emperor.  Some of them have even been allowed by the English to keep their hereditary fiefs as a reward for the services rendered during the revolt.

Walking on the Chandni Chowk we arrived before a kind of guard house of modern construction, an insignificant structure in itself, but whose name is enough to make the population of Delhi tremble.  This is the Kotwali in front of which the unfortunate defenders of the city in 1857 were brought in, after the city was captured by the English, and were summarily executed or hanged…  q
 

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