The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and KashmirDouie, James McCrone, Sir
History
The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir
Douie, James McCrone, Sir
India -- Description and travel; Jammu and Kashmir (India); North-west Frontier Province (Pakistan); Punjab (India)
~The Civil Station.~--The Anarkali gardens and the buildings near them
mark the site of the first Civil Station. John Lawrence's house, now
owned by the Raja of Punch, is beyond the Chauburji on the Multan Road.
The Civil Lines have stretched far to the south-east in the direction of
the Cantonment, which till lately took its name from the tomb of Mian
Mir, Jahangir's spiritual master. The soil is poor and arid. Formerly
the roads were lined with dusty tamarisks. But of late better trees have
been planted, and the Mall is now quite a fine thoroughfare. The
Lawrence Hall Gardens and the grounds of Government House show what can
be done to produce beauty out of a bad soil when there is no lack of
water. There is little to praise in the architecture or statuary of
modern Lahore. The marble canopy over Queen Victoria's statue is however
a good piece of work. Of the two cathedrals the Roman Catholic is the
better building. The Montgomery Hall with the smaller Lawrence Hall
attached, a fine structure in a good position in the public gardens, is
the centre of European social life in Lahore. Government House is close
by, on the opposite side of the Mall. Its core, now a unique and
beautiful dining-room with domed roof and modern oriental decoration, is
the tomb of Muhammad Kasim Khan, a cousin of Akbar. Jamadar Khushal
Singh, a well-known man in Ranjit Singh's reign, built a house round the
tomb. After annexation, Henry Lawrence occupied it for a time, and Sir
Robert Montgomery adopted it as Government House. It is now much
transformed. Beyond Government House on the road to the Cantonment are
the Club and the Panjab Chiefs' College, the only successful attempt in
Lahore to adapt oriental design to modern conditions.
[Illustration: Fig. 147. Street in Lahore.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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