United States or Senegal ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Small zemindars from outlying villages are bringing their wives and daughters to the festivities at the Kootub in circusy-looking bullock-chariots covered with gilt and carvings, and draped and twined with parti-colored ribbons. Some of these gaudy turn-outs are drawn by richly caparisoned, milk-white oxen, with gilded horns.
On the whole, the Nautch dance would be disappointing to most people witnessing it; its fame leads one to expect more than it really amounts to. Before starting back to Delhi, I take a stroll through the adjacent village of Kootub, a place named after the minar, I suppose.
Descending from the Kootub Minar, I am resting beneath the shade of the dak bungalow hard by, when a gray-bearded Hindoo approaches, salaams, and hands me a paper. The paper is a certificate, certifying that the bearer, Chunee Lai, had performed before Captain Somebody of the Fusileers, and had afforded that officer excellent amusement.
The day following my arrival I conclude to take a spin out on my bicycle as far as the Kootub, and see something of it, the ruins amid which it stands, and the Hindoos in holiday attire. I choose the comparative coolness of early morning for the ride out; but early though it be, the road thither is already swarming with gayly dressed people bent on holiday-making.
The crooked main street of the village of Kootub itself presents to-day a scene of gayety and confusion that beggars description. Bunting floats gayly from every window and balcony, in honor of the festival, and is strung across the street from house to house. Thousands of globular colored lanterns are hanging about, ready to be lighted up at night.
It has been my good fortune, I find, to arrive at the old Mogul capital the day before the commencement of an annual merrymaking, picnicking, and general holiday at the celebrated Kootub Minar.
There is a strange crowd gathered here to-day, too; I can hear their shouting and their tom-toming come floating up from among the ruins and the dark-green foliage as I look down from my beautiful eyrie on top of the Kootub upon their pygmy forms, thronging the walks and roads, brown and busy as swarms of ants.
We of course saw the sights of the grand old imperial city the Juma Musjid said to be the largest mosque in Asia, a most commanding building on a small rocky elevation, to which you ascend by a lofty flight of steps, and which has a most magnificent court paved with granite inlaid with marble; the palace, so far as it was open to visitors; the Chandnee Chauk, the great open street and market-place with a fine stream of water flowing through it; and, at the distance of a few miles from the city, the remarkable tower, the Kootub Minar, 240 feet high, erected by the Muhammadan conquerors who first made Delhi their capital.
It is hard to believe that there is any defect, even in its proportions, for so perfect do these latter appear, that one is astonished to learn that it is a taller building than the Kootub Minar. One would never guess it to be anywhere near so tall as 243 feet. The building rests on a plinth of white marble, eighteen feet high and a hundred yards square.
The troupe numbers about a dozen girls, and they have come to the merry-making at the Kootub to gather honest shekels by giving exhibitions of their terpsichorean talents in the Nautch dance.
Word Of The Day