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 Elysees,
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