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 Shah Jahan.  The pretty little Moti Masjid in the private apartments was added by Aurangzeb.  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 Shah’s invasion took place in 1738.  Kashmir was annexed by Akbar in 1587.  Kabul had been more or less closely united with the empire since Babur’s time.

24.  ’In front, at the entrance, was the Naubat Khana, 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 Diwan-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.