As in most Moorish palaces, the baths on one side of this court were the most elegant and elaborately decorated apartments in the palace. The baths have been destroyed, but the walls and roofs still show the elegance with which they were adorned.[553]
Behind this, in the centre of the palace, is a great court, 500 ft. by 370 ft. surrounded by arcades, and approached at the opposite ends through a succession of beautiful courts opening into one another by gateways of great magnificence. One one side of this court is the great hall of the palace—the Dewanni Aum—208 ft. by 76 ft., supported by three ranges of arcades of exquisite beauty. It is open on three sides, and with a niche for the throne at the back. This, like the hall at Allahabad, is now an arsenal, and reduced to as near a similarity as possible to those in our dockyards.[554] Behind it are two smaller courts, the one containing the Dewanni Khas, or private hall of audience, the other the hareem. The hall in the former is one of the most elegant of Shah Jehan’s buildings, being wholly of white marble inlaid with precious stones, and the design of the whole being in the best style of his reign.
One of the most picturesque features about this palace is a marble pavilion, in two storeys, that surmounts one of the circular bastions on the river face, between the hareem and the Dewanni Khas. It looks of an earlier style than that of Shah Jehan, and if Jehangir built anything here it is this. On a smaller scale, it occupies the same place here that the Chalîs Sitûn did in the palace at Allahabad; and exemplifies, even more than in their larger buildings, the extreme elegance and refinement of those who designed these palaces.[555]
Palace at Delhi.
Though the palace at Agra is perhaps more picturesque, and historically certainly more interesting, than that of Delhi, the latter had the immense advantage of being built at once, on one uniform plan, and by the most magnificent, as a builder, of all the sovereigns of India. It had, however, one little disadvantage, in being somewhat later than Agra. All Shah Jehan’s buildings there, seem to have been finished before he commenced the erection of the new city of Shah Jehanabad with its palace, and what he built at Agra is soberer, and in somewhat better taste than at Delhi. Notwithstanding these defects, the palace at Delhi is, or rather was, the most magnificent palace in the East—perhaps in the world—and the only one, at least in India, which enables us to understand what the arrangements of a complete palace were when deliberately undertaken and carried out on one uniform plan ([Woodcut No. 336]).
The palace at Delhi, which is situated like that at Agra close to the edge of the Jumna, is a nearly regular parallelogram, with the angles slightly canted off, and measures 1600 ft. east and west, by 3200 ft. north and south, exclusive of the gateways. It is surrounded on all sides by a very noble wall of red sandstone, relieved at intervals by towers surmounted by kiosks. The principal entrance faces the Chandni Chowk, a noble wide street, nearly a mile long, planted with two rows of trees, and with a stream of water running down its centre. Entering within its deeply-recessed portal, you find yourself
336. Palace at Delhi. (From a native Plan in the possession of the Author.)
beneath the vaulted hall, the sides of which are in two storeys, and with an octagonal break in the centre. This hall, which is 375 ft. in length over all, has very much the effect of the nave of a gigantic Gothic cathedral, and forms the noblest entrance known to belong to any existing palace. At its inner end this hall opened into a courtyard, 350 ft. square, from the centre of which a noble bazaar extended right and left, like the hall, two storeys in height, but not vaulted. One of these led to the Delhi gate, the other, which I believe was never quite finished, to the garden. In front, at the entrance, was the Nobut Khana (A), or music hall, beneath which the visitor entered the second or great court of the palace, measuring 550 ft. north and south, by 385 ft. east and west. In the centre of this stood the Dewanni Aum (B), or great audience hall of the palace, very similar in design to that at Agra, but more magnificent. Its dimensions are, as nearly as I can ascertain, 200 ft. by 100 ft. over all. In its centre is a highly ornamental niche, in which, on a platform of marble richly inlaid with precious stones,[556] and directly facing the entrance, once stood the celebrated peacock throne, the most gorgeous example of its class that perhaps even the East could ever boast of. Behind this again was a garden-court; on its eastern side was the Rung Mehal (C), or painted hall, containing a bath and other apartments.