DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5832#0119
96
SCENES IN INDIA.
apartments for the different stipendiaries. In the
right hand corner there is an elegant mosque, and
in the left a small pavilion. These gardens have
suffered greatly from neglect. They are of consider-
able extent and inspire a solemn impression as you
enter, which is no doubt enhanced by the desolation
that seems to reign around. The mind is irresistibly
impressed with a feeling that it is the abode of silence
and of death. There is a perception imparted, and a
sentiment realized, of which we are perhaps never so
conscious as when we -draw nigh to " the place of
graves/' where " the prisoners rest together, and hear
not the voice of the oppressor."
Before we quitted this neighbourhood, we visited
the fort of Toglokabad, at the extremity of one of the
Mewat hills, not far from the city. It was erected
by Toglok Shah, a Patan prince of some celebrity, in
the early part of the ninth century. It is built in a
bold style, its massy walls bidding defiance to all
the means of assault practised at that early period;
though it is pretended that the use of fire-arms was
known in India some time previously to the first
irruption of the Moguls into Hindostan, three cen-
turies before its invasion by Timour, when that
portion of the peninsula between the Indus and the
Ganges, to which his family so rapidly succeeded,
was under the Patan, or Afghan government: so
that cannon might have been in use when this fort
was erected—indeed the strength of its defences would
imply that even in that early age sieges had already
become formidable.
The tomb of the founder is seen near the fort, and
SCENES IN INDIA.
apartments for the different stipendiaries. In the
right hand corner there is an elegant mosque, and
in the left a small pavilion. These gardens have
suffered greatly from neglect. They are of consider-
able extent and inspire a solemn impression as you
enter, which is no doubt enhanced by the desolation
that seems to reign around. The mind is irresistibly
impressed with a feeling that it is the abode of silence
and of death. There is a perception imparted, and a
sentiment realized, of which we are perhaps never so
conscious as when we -draw nigh to " the place of
graves/' where " the prisoners rest together, and hear
not the voice of the oppressor."
Before we quitted this neighbourhood, we visited
the fort of Toglokabad, at the extremity of one of the
Mewat hills, not far from the city. It was erected
by Toglok Shah, a Patan prince of some celebrity, in
the early part of the ninth century. It is built in a
bold style, its massy walls bidding defiance to all
the means of assault practised at that early period;
though it is pretended that the use of fire-arms was
known in India some time previously to the first
irruption of the Moguls into Hindostan, three cen-
turies before its invasion by Timour, when that
portion of the peninsula between the Indus and the
Ganges, to which his family so rapidly succeeded,
was under the Patan, or Afghan government: so
that cannon might have been in use when this fort
was erected—indeed the strength of its defences would
imply that even in that early age sieges had already
become formidable.
The tomb of the founder is seen near the fort, and