PALACE OF BHURTPOOR.

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of cavalry. There were feats of arms of the young nobles of the court; but more especially was this seat a seat of justice, for if any one in the crowd had a petition he was ordered to approach, and very often justice was done then and there, for "those kings," says a French authority, "how barbarous soever esteemed by us, do yet constantly remember that they owe justice to their subjects."

We were shown this hall, and by the aid of a sergeant, who walked ahead and warned us against stumbling, climbed up a narrow stair and came out on the throne. All the decorations have vanished, and it is simply a marble platform, "so high that a man cannot reach to it from below with his hand." The view from the throne embraced a wide, open plain, which could easily accommodate a large crowd, as well as give space for maneuvers, reviews, and fighting elephants. The hall even now is beautiful and stately, although it has been given over to soldiers, and the only audience that saluted General Grant during his brief tenure of the throne of Aurungzebe were groups of English privates who lounged about taking their ease, making ready for dinner, and staring at the General and the groups of officers who accompanied him. The last of the Moguls who occupied this throne was the foolish old dotard whom the Sepoys made emperor in 1857, and who used to sit and tear his hair and dash his turban on the ground, and call down the curses of God upon his soldiers for having dragged him to the throne. All that has long since passed away. The emperor lies in Burmah in an unknown grave, the site carefully concealed from all knowledge, lest some Moslem retainer should build a shrine to his memory. His son is a pensioner and prisoner at $3,000 a year. The rest of his family were slain, and the present house of the Mohammedan conquerors has sunk too low even for compassion.

Notwithstanding the havoc of armies and the wear and tear of barrack life there are many noble buildings in the palace. This hall of audience, before the mutiny, was decorated with mosaic; but an officer of the British army captured the mosaic, had it made up into various articles, and sold them for $2,500.

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From here we went to the hall of special audience, where the emperor saw his princes and noblemen, and which is known as the hall of the peacock throne. The site of this famous throne was pointed out to us, but there is no trace of it. Around the white marble platform on which the throne rested are the following words in gilt Persian characters: "If there be an elysium on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this." The peacock throne was simply a mass of jewels and gold valued at about $30,000,000. Mr. Beresford, in his book on Delhi, says it was called the peacock throne "from its having the figures of two peacocks standing behind it, their tails expanded, and

INTERIOR OF PALACE.

the whole so inlaid with sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and other precious stones of appropriate colors as to represent life. The throne itself

was six feet long by four

feet broad. It stood on six massive feet, which, with the body,
were of solid gold inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds.
It was supported by a canopy of gold, upheld by twelve pillars,
all richly emblazoned with costly gems and a fringe of pearls
"On the other side
ornamented the borders of the canopy."
of the throne stood umbrellas, one of the Oriental emblems of
royalty. They were formed of crimson velvet richly embroid-
ered and fringed with pearls. The handles were eight feet
high, of solid gold, and studded with diamonds." The ceiling
of this hall was of solid silver. In 1739, when Nadir Shah, the

Persian, took Delhi, he broke up the peacock throne and carried away the jewels, the Mahrattas came in 1760 and took the silver, the English the mosaics, the bath-tubs of marble, and articles of lesser value, so that the room of the peacock throne is now a stripped and shabby room, with no shadow of its former splendor.

We went into the bath-rooms of the kings and the more private apartments. Some of those rooms had been ingeniously decorated in frescoes, but when the Prince of Wales came to Delhi a ball was given him in the palace, and three frescoes were covered with whitewash. No reason was given for this wantonness, but that it was thought white would light up better under the ball-room lamps. I asked one of the officers who accompanied us, and who told us the story with indignation, whether the decorations could not be restored, like the restorations in the mosque of Cordova. But there is no such hope. One of the most interesting features in a palace which has been already too much stripped vanishes before the whitewash brush of a subaltern. The same spirit was shown in the stripping of the great mosque called the Jam-Mussid. After the capture of Delhi in 1857 the troops plundered it, going so far as to strip the gilding from the minarets. This mosque even now is one of the noblest buildings in India. It stands in the center of the city, built upon a rock. In the ancient time there were four streets that converged upon the mosque, leading into various parts of the town. But as the mosque was used during the mutiny as a fort, all the space in front of it has been cleared for military purposes, and the space between the mosque and the palace that was formerly densely peopled is now an open plain, where troops may maneuver and cannon may fire. Nothing is more important in the civilization of India by the English than that the cannon should have range. In the days of the Moguls the emperors came to the mosque to pray. It is now a religious edifice, having been restored to the Moslems recently, after twenty years' retention by the British, a sort of punishment to the Moslems for their course during the mutiny. The ascent is up a noble, sweeping range of steps.

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These steps were crowded with people, who came out in the afternoon to enjoy the air, chatter, buy and sell, and fight chickens. On Friday afternoon, when there is service, and on As the General and fête days, the steps become quite a fair.

party walked along, beggars and dealers in chickens and falcons swarmed around them, anxious for alms or to trade. One of the treasures in the mosque was a hair of Mohammed's beard. This holiest of Moslem relics is under a keeper, who has a pension for the service. He was a quiet, venerable soul, who The hair was long, and brought us the relic in a glass case. had a reddish auburn tinge which time has not touched. Another relic was a print of Mohammed's foot in marble. The footprint was deep and clear, and shows that when the Prophet put his foot down it was with a force which even the rocks could not resist. We strolled about the mosque, which is large and capacious, as should become the temple of an emA few devout souls were at prayer, but somehow the peror. building had a neglected look. The mosque itself is 201 feet long and 120 feet broad, and the minarets 130 feet high. It was here that the Mogul emperors worshiped, and here was read the litany of the house of Timur. The last of these performances was during the mutiny in 1857, when the old king came in state, as his ancestors did, and reproduced the sacred story of the sacrifice of Abraham in the sacrifice of a camel by his own royal hands.