29.  All these people were cleared out by the events of 1867, and the few beautiful fragments of the palace which have retained anything of their original magnificence are now clean and in good order.  The elaborate decorations of the Diwan-i-Khas have been partially restored, and the interior of this building is still extremely rich and elegant.

’Of the public parts of the palace all that now remains is the entrance hall, the Naubat Khana, Diwan-i-Amm and Khas, and the Rang Mahall—­now used as a mess-room, and one or two small pavilions.  They are the gems of the palace it is true, but without the courts and corridors connecting them they lose all their meaning and more than half their beauty.  Being now situated in the middle of a British barrack-yard, they look like precious stones torn from their settings in some exquisite piece of Oriental jeweller’s work and set at random in a bed of the commonest plaster’ (Fergusson, ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 312).  Since Fergusson wrote an immense amount of work has been done in restoration and conservation, but it is difficult to obtain a general view of the result.

The books about Delhi are even more tantalising and unsatisfactory than those which deal with Agra.  Mr. Beglar’s contribution to Vol.  IV of the Archaeological Survey Reports is a little, but very little, better than Mr. Carlleyle’s disquisition on Agra in that volume.  Sir A. Cunningham’s observations in the first and twentieth volumes of the same series are of greater value, but are fragmentary and imperfect, and scarcely notice at all the city of Shahjahan.  Fergusson’s criticisms, so far as they go, are of permanent importance, though the scheme of his work did not allow him to treat in detail of any particular section.  Guide-books by Beresford Cooper, Harcourt, and Keene, of which Keene’s is the latest, and, consequently, in some respects the best, are all extremely unsatisfactory.  Mr. H. C. Fanshawe’s Delhi Past and Present (John Murray, 1902), a large, handsome work something between a guide-book and a learned treatise, is not quite satisfying.  The late Mr. Carr Stephen, a resident of Delhi, wrote a valuable book on the Archaeology of the city, but it has no illustrations, except a few plans on a small scale. (8vo, Ludhiana, 1876.) A good critical, comprehensive, well illustrated description of the remains of the cities, said to number thirteen, all grouped together by European writers under the name of Delhi, does not exist, and it seems unlikely that the Panjab Government will cause the blank to be filled.  No Government in India has such opportunities, or has done so little, to elucidate the history of the country, as the Government of the Panjab.  But it has shown greater interest in the matter of late.  The reorganized Archaeological Survey of India, under the capable guidance of Sir J. H. Marshall, C.I.E., has not yet had time to do much at Delhi beyond the work of conservation.  A fourteenth Delhi is now being built (1914).