extracts from which will be found in the next chapter. Fergusson, the historian of architecture, said of the palace of Shahjahanabad that it was "the most magnificent in the East – perhaps in the world." The fort in which it stands is about a mile and a half in circuit, the massive walls rising sixty feet above the river, and higher still on the moated side toward the land. "Two barbicans, each 110 feet high, guard the main entrance on that side, two smaller gates opening on the side facing the Jumna. Within was a vast series of public and private halls and apartments, with a mosque, bath-house, and gardens; the whole permeated by a marble channel bringing in the bright and wholesome water of the canal." The great mosque dated 1658, the year of Shah Jahan's deposition, is described by Mr. Keene as "raised on a rocky basement, and has three domes, and two lofty towers each 130 feet high. Its outside area is fourteen hundred square yards, and the approach is up a flight of thirty-three steps. Three sides of the quadrangle are arcades or open cloisters, the fourth being the sanctum itself, 260 feet long, with a depth of ninety feet. The hall of worship is paved with black and white marble, marked out for 899 worshippers."
In the stately city Shah Jahan spent his luxurious old age, sometimes leaving it for a summer excursion to the lovely valleys of Kashmir, whither he would journey with a set of travelling tents so numerous and complete that they took two months to pitch at the successive stages of the royal route. His coronation anniversaries were observed with splendid extravagance,
