18. Battle fought between Tours and Poitiers, A.D. 732.
19. The principal mosque of every town is known as the Jāmi Masjid, and is filled by large congregations on Fridays. The great mosque of Delhi stands on a natural rocky eminence, completely covered by the building, and approached on three sides by magnificent flights of steps, which give it peculiar dignity. It is, perhaps, the finest mosque in the world, and certainly has few rivals. It differs from most mosques in that its exterior is more magnificent than its interior. The two minarets are each about 130 feet high. The year A.H. 1060 corresponds to A.D. 1650. The mosque was begun in that year, and finished six years later. It is close to the palace, and seems to have been designed to serve as the mosque for the palace, as well as the city, for which reason no place of worship was included in his residence by Shāh Jahān. The pretty little Motī Masjid in the private apartments was added by Aurangzēb. Fergusson (ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 319) gives a view of the mosque. Carr Stephen (pp. 260-6) gives approximate measurements, translations of the inscriptions, and many details. See Fanshawe, pp. 44-8 and plates.
20. Since the Mutiny multitudes of houses between the palace and the mosque have been cleared away.
21. 'Entering within its deeply recessed portal, you find yourself beneath the vaulted hall, the sides of which are in two stories, and with an octagonal break in the centre. This hall, which is 375 feet 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' (Fergusson, ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 309). This is the Lahore Gate.
22. What recked the Chieftain if he stood
On Highland heath, or Holy- rood?
He rights such wrong where it is given,
If it were in the court of heaven.'
—(Scott, Lady of the Lake, Canto V, stanza 6).
23. The foundation-stone of the palace was laid on the 12th of May, 1639 (N.S.—9 Muharrum, A.H. 1049). (E. & D., vii, p. 86), and the work continued for nine years, three months, and some days. Nadir Shāh's invasion took place in 1738. Kāshmīr was annexed by Akbar in 1587. Kābul had been more or less closely united with the empire since Bābur's time.
24. 'In front, at the entrance, was the Naubat Khāna, or music hall, beneath which the visitor entered the second or great court of the palace, measuring 550 feet north and south, by 385 feet east and west. In the centre of this stood the Dīwān-i- Amm, or great audience hall of the palace, very similar in design to that at Agra, but more magnificent. Its dimensions are about 200 feet by 100 feet over all. In its centre is a highly ornamental niche, in which on a platform of marble richly inlaid with previous stones, 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 Rang Mahall, or painted hall, containing a bath and other apartments' (Fergusson, ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 310).
The inlaid pictures were carried off, sold by the spoiler to Government, set as table-tops, and deposited in the Indian Section of the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington (Hist. of Ind. and E. Archit., ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 311, note); but in November, 1902, the Orpheus mosaic, along with several other inlaid panels, was returned to Delhi, where the panels were reset in due course. The representation of Orpheus is 'a bad copy from Raphael's picture of Orpheus charming the beasts'. Austin de Bordeaux has been already noticed. Many of the mosaics in the panels which had not been disturbed were renewed by Signor Menegatti of Florence during the years 1906-9.
The peacock throne and the six other thrones in the palace are fully described by Tavernier. (Transl. and ed. by V. Ball, vol. i, pp. 381-7.) Further details will be found in Carr Stephen, Archaeology of Delhi, pp. 220-7.
25. The throne here referred to was a makeshift arrangement used by the later emperors. Nādir Shāh in 1738 cleared the palace of the peacock throne and almost everything portable of value. The little that was left the Marāthās took. Their chief prize was the silver filagree ceiling of the Dīwān-i- Khās. This hall was, 'if not the most beautiful, certainly the most highly ornamented of all Shāh Jahān's buildings. It is larger certainly, and far richer in ornament than that of Agra, though hardly so elegant in design; but nothing can exceed the beauty of the inlay of precious stones with which it is adored, or the general poetry of the design, It is round the roof of this hall that the famous inscription runs: "If there is a heaven on earth, it is this, it is this ", which may safely be rendered into the sober English assertion that no palace now existing in the world possesses an apartment of such singular elegance as this' (Fergusson, ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 311).