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Major Brind, of the Artillery, with a detachment of fifty men of the 8th Foot, and twenty of the 1st Bengal European Fusiliers, under the command of Major Bannatyne, forced an entrance in the most brilliant way into the Jumma Musjid, and contributed much to the success of the operations.
The Jumma Musjid is raised on a lofty basement; it has three gateways, four corner towers, two lofty minarets, and three domes. We ascended one of the towers and had an extended view; inside there is a spacious quadrangle, three hundred and twenty-five feet square, in the centre of which is a fountain for ablution; and on three sides there are sandstone cloisters.
The buildings of Lucknow are not important, with the exception of the Jumma Musjid, the great Imambara with its fine gateway, court, and arcades. The Imambara Mosque has two minarets, and the great Imambara Hall, one hundred and sixty-three by fifty-three feet and forty-nine feet high, is one of the largest vaulted galleries in the world.
In the plan of operations for the capture of Ali Musjid one brigade was to attack in front, one in flank, and one by a wide détour through the mountains was to cut off the retreat. In this operation it fell to the Guides to accompany General Tytler's column, which was the one destined, after a long night march through the mountains, to drop down in rear of the fort.
The sights at Delhi are worth a visit, but are too well known to need description. In the centre of the town stands the Jumma Musjid, the St. Peter's of Mahomedans; its handsome domes and tapering minarets are built of red sandstone and white marble, a combination which is common in the edifices of this city, and which produces a most agreeable effect.
At the taking of Ali Musjid arah! at Futtehabad, with Gough arah! and at Ahmed Khel, where Stewart cut up the Afghans so tremendously, Mildare earned great distinction as well as the Victoria Cross, which I am delighted to see, in glancing through the Army and Navy Gazette, Her Majesty has been pleased to confer upon him.
He had seen his fellow elephants die of cold and epilepsy and starvation and sunstroke up at a place called Ali Musjid, ten years later; and afterward he had been sent down thousands of miles south to haul and pile big balks of teak in the timberyards at Moulmein. There he had half killed an insubordinate young elephant who was shirking his fair share of work.
The silent ravages of the destroyer, who carries away pillars and stone, for the erection of other edifices, has been going on for centuries. Pillars, from which the architraves have been thus removed, have been thrown down by earthquakes, ready to be set up again for the decoration of the first Musjid that might be erected in the neighbourhood.
We also saw the Motee Musjid, the Pearl Mosque as it is called, built of marble, and called the Pearl Mosque, as I suppose, on account of its beauty and symmetry; the grand tomb of Akbar at Secundra, six miles from Agra; and other objects of interest. I am not to attempt a description of these world-famed buildings of Agra.
"I'll do it," he said at last, cutting the advertisement out of the paper with a penknife. "It isn't often a man has a chance to star in this game of existence. I've lost all my own social Lives: one in that business at Oxford, one in the row at Ali Musjid, and the third went to-night. But I'll star. Every sinner should desire a new Life," he added with a sneer.*
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