Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

LUCKNOW, THE CAPITAL OF OUDE.

We give on next page a picture of this city of the East, made famous by the Sepoy war, which conveyed such terror to the hearts of those endangered, and awakened such sympathy throughout the world. It is a fortified city of some two hundred thousand inhabitants, situated on the banks of the Goomtee, a tributary of the Ganges. It has an imposing external appearance, and is divided into several quarters, some of which contain noble buildings, though others are close and mean. In some of its buildings Grecian architecture has been imitated, and many of its private palaces are filled with European furniture. The principal building is the Iman-barah, or mausoleum of Asoph-ad-Dowlah, considered by Lord Valencia as the finest building in India. This edifice was built by the occupant during his lifetime, and is remarkable for the fineness of its marble, the elegance of its towers, and the beautiful proportion of its colonnades. The tomb, which is resplendent with gold, silver and jewels, is placed in the principal hall, which measures two hundred and eighty feet in height, its length being fifty, its breadth forty feet. The hall also contains a model of Mahomet's tomb at Mecca.

This city was beleaguered by the infuriated Sepoys, and its inhabitants, defended by a mere handful of British troops, were expecting a fate similar to that which had just been visited upon Cawnpore. Despair had seized upon every one, and the last effort was being made to repel the malignant foe, when Havelock arrived and saved the place. It was at this critical moment that Jessie Brown, the clairaurant Scotch maiden, heard the sound of the approaching pipes playing the slogan of the McGregors, above the roar of the battle, though it was hidden from all other ears. Her inspiration gave new hope to the faltering, and new courage to the soldiers. The incident is the theme for one of Whittier's sweetest poems:

THE PIPES AT LUCKNOW.

Pipes of the misty moorlands,
Voice of the glens and hills;
The droning of the torrents,

The treble of the rills!

Not the braes of broom and heather,
Nor the mountains dark with rain,

Nor maiden bower, nor border tower,
Have heard your sweetest strain!
Dear to the Lowland reaper,

And plaided mountaineer,-
To the cottage and the castle
The Scottish pipes are dear;-
Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch
O'er mountain, loch and glade;
But the sweetest of all music

The pipes at Lucknow played.
Day by day the Indian tiger

Louder yelled, and nearer crept;
Round and round the jungle-serpent
Near and nearer circles swept.
"Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,-
. Pray to-day!" the soldier said;
"To-morrow, death's between us

And the wrong and shame we dread."

O, they listened, looked and waited,
Till their hope became despair;
And the sobs of low bewailing

Filled the pauses of their prayer.
Then up spake a Scottish maiden,
With her ear unto the ground:
"Dinna ye hear it?-dinna ye hear it?
The pipes o' Havelock sound!"

Hushed the wounded man his groaning;
Hushed the wife her little ones;
Alone they heard the drum-roll

And the roar of Sepoy guns.
But to sounds of home and childhood
The Highland ear was true;-
As her mother's cradle-crooning
The mountain pipes she knew.
Like the march of soundless music
Through the vision of the seer,
More of feeling than of hearing,

Of the heart than of the ear,
She knew the droning pibroch,
She knew the Campbell's call:
"Hark! hear ye no' MacGregor's,—
The grandest o' them all!"

O, they listened, dumb and breathless,
And they caught the sound at last;
Faint and far beyond the Goomtee
Rose and fell the piper's blast!
Then a burst of wild thanksgiving
Mingled woman's voice and man's:
"God be praised!-the march of Havelock!
The piping of the clans!"

Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance,

Sharp and shrill as swords at strife,

[graphic][merged small][subsumed]

Came the wild MacGregor's clan-call,
Stinging all the air to life.
But when the far-off dust-cloud
To plaided legions grew,
Full tenderly and blithesomely
The pipes of rescue blew!

Round the silver domes of Lucknow,
Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine,
Breathed the air to Britons dearest,

The air of Auld Lang Syne.
O'er the cruel roll of war-drums

Rose that sweet and homelike strain; And the tartan clove the turban,

As the Goomtee cleaves the plain.

Dear to the corn-land reaper
And plaided mountaineer,
To the cottage and the castle
The piper's song is dear.
Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch

O'er mountain, glen and glade;
But the sweetest of all music

The Pipes at Lucknow played!

Lucknow is a curiously-built place, the best part of the town being reached only through narrow streets of mud-built hovels and several gates; when, however, this part is passed, the traveller is struck by the broad streets, handsome houses built in the European style, and splendid mosques, with beautiful ornamented minarets and cupolas of gilt copper.

It has, upon the whole, the appearance of a European city. The ancient portion of the place exhibits some beautiful specimens of Arabian architecture; the entrance into the

best part of the city, which lies on the river quarter, is approached by three gates. Here are the principal buildings. The interior of these sadly contrast with the exterior, from the glaring want of taste displayed by the occupants; the walls of the palaces are hung with the most wretched prints, and the beautiful gardens are filled with plaster figures; in one of these latter, placed in conspicuous positions, were two common iron stoves of an urn shape. In the tombs of the wealthy, the display of glass and tinsel reminds one of the stalls at some of the French and German fairs. In the sunimer-houses, equal want of taste is displayed-heathen gods of Greece and Rome, and shepherdesses, sadiers, Hindoo deities, dogs, monster lions, and a whole menagerie of indescribable things.

The kingdom of Oude, of which Lucknow is the capital, is larger than any other of the states which covered the Indian peninsula, and which are now under British rule. To the annexation of this kingdom to the British Indian empire is attributed by many the late fearful outbreak, which at one time threatened to destroy the British power in that part of Asia. The country of Oude is very fertile, and produces cotton, indigo, rice, silk and sugar-cane. Its northern part is intersected by mountain ranges, which belong to the chain of Himalayas. It was independent for a long time after the other states had been brought under the British.

EHRENBREITSTEIN AND COBLENTZ.

There is no more interesting object on the Rhine than the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein (Bright Stone of Honor), that overlooks the city of Coblentz opposite. It is an immense structure, and has for centuries taken a prominent part in the wars of central Europe. Napoleon blockaded it from 1798 to 1799, and it was at length forced to surrender in 1808 for want of provisions. It was then blown up. In 1802, the fortress and the little town of Thul. Ehrenbreitstein were bestowed upon the prince of Nassau-Wielburg by way of indemnity; they were subsequently ceded to Prussia, and now belong to the Prussian grand-duchy of the Lower Rhine. It has been rebuilt by Prussia and refortified, and from its elevation and superior internal resources, it is the most formidable fortress

in the world. An hundred thousand men can be quartered in the works, while the citadel alone is capable of holding fourteen thousand men, with provisions for eight thousand men for ten years. The great parade ground on the top of the rock, is over huge cisterns capable of holding a three years' supply of water for the garrison, while a well, excavated to the depth of four hundred feet in the solid rock, communicates with the Rhine. In its present condition, it would be hard to take it, though modern science might effect it if so determined. Impossibilities are proved to be possible every day.

When Byron visited the fortress in 1809-10, it was a blackened ruin. "Here Ehrenbreitstein, with her shattered wall Black with the miner's blast, upon her height

[graphic][merged small]

Yet shows of what she was, when shell and ball

Rebounding idly on her strength did light; A tower of victory! from whence the flight Of baffled woes was watched along the plain; But peace destroyed what war could never blight,

And laid those proud roofs bare to summer rain

On which the iron shower for years had poured

66

in vain."

Byron, in a note to the above stanza, says: Ehrenbreitstein, that is, the bright stone of honor,' one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, was dismantled and blown up by the French at the truce of Leoben. It had been, and could only be, reduced by famine or treachery. It yielded to the former, aided by surprise. After having seen the fortifications of Gibraltar at Malta, it did not strike by comparison, but the situation is commanding. General Marceau besieged it in vain for some time, and I slept in a room where I was shown a window at which he is said to have been standing, observing the progress of the siege by moonlight, when a ball struck immediately below it."

Coblentz, that forms a portion of our picture on page 511, is a strongly-fortified

city of Rhenish Prussia, on the left bank of the Rhine, at the influx of the Moselle. It is a busy and bustling place, as indicated by our engraving, with a population of some twenty thousand inhabitants, well-built, and possessing many desirable peculiarities. Its situation is very pleasant, and it is a popular stoppingplace with passengers on the Rhine. It is defended by a series of detached forts, and obstinately opposed the French in 1794. It is the birthplace of Prince Metternich.

These pictures of foreign scenes are interesting. We need not die in ignorance of the beauties of foreign lands described by tourists, when we have the pictured fact brought to our doors. We thus realize, in the present scene, the spirit of the little poem by Fields"To an Artist:"

"I've sailed an ocean to behold the Rhine,

That world of beauty bursting on the view; But now your canvas wafts to me the vine And rock-clad hills long since I wandered through.

Twin-castled River, far away no more,

What further need the Atlantic wave to
plough?

You've brought old Coblentz to my very door,
And Ehrenbreitstein is my neighbor now."

OLD ST. LUKE'S

The building and surroundings, of which we give a view below, drawn by one of our first designers, was long an object of attraction in the neighboring city of Chelsea.

OLD ST. LUKE'S CHURCH, CHELSEA.

Situated as it was on the principal avenue of the place, the attention of the passer-by was arrested by its fine proportions, which were enhanced by the results of the care and

CHURCH, CHELSEA.

skill with which the churchyard had been laid out. The church was designed by that distinguished architect, Richard Upjohn of New York, and his plans were strictly followed without any attempts at improvement. Its outlines were admirable; its interior was remarkably striking. A simple wooden structure, it did not pretend to be stone, nor was there any sham about it. The kind of trees which harmonize with a church in the style of the "Early English" architecture were planted around it, and it seemed, after a few years, as if the spot in which it was placed was a part of an original forest, that had been spared when all the rest had been levelled. A little removed from the tide of travel, but still easily seen from the road, its quiet beauty attracted every passer-by. It appeared to be, indeed, an oasis near the desert of the thoroughfare of business, care and excitement.

Were we disposed to write the local history of the church to whose faith it was consecrated, we should be obliged to go back to the

[graphic]
« AnteriorContinua »