to the Presidency towns. It is healthily situated, being 403 feet above the level of the sea, in latitude 26°58'N. and longitude 80°58'E. Its claim to the title of capital dates from the accession of Nawab Asuf-ud-daula, A.D. 1775; and although destitute of any extensive trade or manufacture, it is still a place of considerable wealth, and the centre of modern Indian life and fashion, and the best school of Indian Music, Grammar and Moslem theology. Lucknow is divided into four parts:—
The first part comprises the native city, which is extensive, but meanly built, and squalid in parts remote from the Chauk, or public promenade, where everything is bright and cheerful to render it attractive to European visitors and to the native gentry who frequent the place. The second, contains the King’s palaces, including the residences of his court and religious edifices; the third, the civil station, which chiefly consists of houses of the European community; and the fourth, the Dilkusha Cantonments,[1] which occupy the south-eastern quarter and is separated from the city by Gazi-ud-din Haidar’s canal; The old Cantonments, built by Sadat Ali Khan, was on the opposite side of the river and known as Mariaon, a name which the locality still retains. The chief points whence good views of Lucknow can be had, are La Martiniere College and Sadat Ali’s Tomb; the Chutter Munzil Palace and Residency-tower; the Imambara of Asuf-ud-daula and the Clock Tower at Husainabad, from the tops of which you can obtain a beautiful panorama of the city and the surrounding country.
The present city stands on what was the sight of 64 villages, the memory of several of which is still preserved in the names of the mohallas built over them, but all traces of others have passed away, and their names can only be collected from ancient records. The original centre of the city, is the high ground which, crowned by the Musjid, or mosque, of Aurungzeb, overhangs the Stone Bridge, and which is called Lukshman Tila. On this site formerly stood the village of Lukshmanpur. There is an old story that Ayodhya[2] (Ajodhya) was once such an enormous city, in the days when the great dynasty of the Rajput
- ↑ The Dilkusha Cantonments was built, after the re-occupation of the Province by the British, in 1859.
- ↑ Ayodhya means "the unconquerable” city; and is the name from which the modern province of Oudh, or Avadh, has been called. It was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Kosal or Kosala, situated on the banks of the Sarju, or Ghagra. It stands first among the sacred cities of India, because it was here that Ram, the greatest of the incarnations of Vishnu, was born, and from a spot on the Sarju, near Ayodhya, he is said to have ascended to heaven in the sight of his admiring and longing companions.
