History of Indian and Eastern Architecture v2.c26.s2.1

v2.c26.s2.1

Of the two mosques at Old Delhi and at Ajmîr, the first named is the earlier, having been begun some seven or eight years before the other, and is also very much the larger.³ It is, besides, associated with the Qutb Mînâr, and some of the most beautiful tombs of the age, which altogether make up a group with which nothing at Ajmîr can compare. The situation, too, of the Delhi ruins is singularly beautiful, for they stand on the gentle slope of a hill, overlooking a plain that had once apparently been a lake, but which afterwards became the site of three successive capitals of the East. In front are the ruins of Tughlaqâbâd, the gigantic fort of an old Pathân chief; and further north the plain is still covered with the ruins of Firozâbâd and Indrapat, the capitals of the later Pathâns and earlier Mughals. Beyond that, at the distance of about 10 miles, are seen the towers of Shâhjahânâbâd, the modern capital, and till 1857 the seat of the nominal monarchy of the Great Mughal. Still further north are situated the civil station and ruins of the old British cantonments. It is a fortunate circumstance that the British station was not, as at Agra, placed in the midst of the ruins, since it is to this that we owe their preservation. But for the distance, marble columns would doubtless have been taken for all purposes for which they might have been available, without regard to their beauty, and the interest of the ruins thereby annihilated. Even as it is, the buildings belonging to the celebrated Shâlimâr gardens, which were the only buildings of importance in the neighbourhood of the English station, have long since disappeared.