Roving East and Roving West | Page 9

E.V. Lucas
saw for the first time in my life-- and I hope the last--the expression on the countenance of these terrible birds in the execution of their duty: more than the mere execution of duty, the determination to have no more nonsense, to put an end to anything so monstrous as self-protection in others; for my horse being directly in the way, he flew under its neck and for a moment I thought that he was confusing me with the desired mallard. Nothing more merciless or purposeful did I ever see.
Then began a really heroic struggle on the part of the victim. He timed his dives to perfection, and escaped so often that the spirit of chivalry would have decreed a truce. But blood had been tasted, and, the desire being for more, the guns were again discharged. Not even they, however, could divert the duck from his intention of saving his life, and he dived away from the shot, too.
It was at this moment that assistance to the gallant little bird arrived--not from man, who was past all decency, but from brother feathers. Out of a clear sky suddenly appeared two tern, dazzling in their whiteness, and these did all in their power to infuriate the hawk and lure him from the water. They flew round him and over him; they called him names; they said he was a bully and that all of us (which was true) ought to be ashamed of ourselves; they daunted and challenged and attacked. But the enemy was too strong for them. A fusillade drove them off, and once again we were free to consider the case of the duck, who was still swimming anxiously about, hoping against hope. More shots were fired, one of the boys waded in with a stick, and the dogs were added to the assault; and in the face of so determined a bombardment the poor little creature at last flew up, to be struck down within a few seconds by the insatiable avenger.
That was the crowning event of the afternoon. Thereafter we had only small successes, and some very pronounced failures when, as happened several times, a bird flew for safety through a tree, and the hawk, following, was held up amid the branches. One of the birds thus to escape was a blue jay of brilliant beauty. We also got some hares. And then we loitered back under the yellowing sky, and Sir Umar Hayat Khan ceased suddenly to be a foe of fur and feathers and became a poet, talking of sunsets in India and in England as though the appreciation of tender beauty were his only delight.

NEW, OR IMPERIAL, DELHI
There have been seven Delhis; and it required no little courage to establish a new one--the Imperial capital--actually within sight of most of them; but the courage was forthcoming. Originally the position was to be to the north of the present city, where the Coronation Durbar spread its canvas, but Raisina was found to be healthier, and it is there, some five miles to the south-west, that the new palaces are rising from the rock. Fatehpur-Sikri is the only city with which the New Delhi can be compared; but not Akbar himself could devise it on a nobler scale. Akbar's centralising gift and Napoleon's spacious views may be said to combine here, the long avenues having kinship with the Champs Elysées, and Government House and the Secretariat on the great rocky plateau at Raisina corresponding to the palace on Fatehpur-Sikri's highest point. The splendour and the imagination which designed the lay-out of Imperial Delhi cannot be over-praised, and under the hands of Sir Edwin Lutyens and Mr. Herbert Baker some wonderful buildings are coming to life. The city, since it is several square miles in extent, cannot be finished for some years, but it may be ready to be the seat of Government as soon as 1924.
As I have said, the old Delhis are all about the new one. On the Grand Trunk road out of Delhi proper, which goes to Muttra and Agra, you pass, very quickly, on the left, the remains of Firozabad, the capital of Firoz Shah in the later thirteenth century. Two or three miles further on is Indrapat on its hill overlooking the Jumna, surrounded by lofty walls. It is as modern as the sixteenth century, but is now in ruins. At Indrapat reigned Humayun, the son of the mighty Babar (who on his conquering way to Delhi had swum every river in advance of his army) and the father of the mighty Akbar. I loitered long within Indrapat's massive walls, which are now given up to a few attendants and an occasional visitor, and like all the monuments around Delhi are most carefully conserved under the Act for that purpose,
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