Historic Lucknow

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Lucknow has a personality and aura of its own. This great city had a past, which passes through the entangled histories of Hindu princedom's and Muslim invasion's. The city has not seen much of Mughal rulers, but they left their footprints in the buildings, monuments, gardens and records. The character of Lucknow has retained, its originality, being referred as Nawabi. The Nawabi character started with Nawab Wazir and ended with Nawab Wajid Ali Shah, who was a great connoisseur of Indian Arts. Lucknow till date, has regained its own old peculiar charm and essence.

I at one time thought that I should like to write a book about Lucknow. It has a personality of its own. It has not, like some of our great cities, a past which runs through the tangled histories of Hindu princedoms and Muslim invasions; it has seen little even of the Great Moguls; but it has in itself all the attractions of a period picture. Its buildings, its records and its traditions are all of the period; its character, as every resident of Oudh knows, was always "Nawabi" and remains "Nawabi". The historian, portraying a dynasty which began with the first great Nawab Wazir and ended with the unhappy Wajid Ali Shah, may eee in its record only the story of decline: the artist may find in its buildings much that is artificial and even extravagant. But it is all in character; and its history is so near our own times, and is indeed linked so closely with part of our own record, that it never loses a strong human interest. It is no picture of far-off and half-understood things; we are looking all the time on the Lucknow of the Nawabs with their mixture of Oriental and Wes- tern extravagances; the Lucknow of Claud Martin, and above all of Henry Lawrence and the Residency.

When I first read Miss Hay's articles in The Pioneer I was glad to find that she was doing something of what I had once hoped to do; and I am delighted to know that we are now to have her articles in book form. It will appeal to all who have known Lucknow and have felt its peculiar charm.