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 Chap. IV.]

REIGN OF SHAH JEHAN.

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brought few calamities on his own subjects, while his internal administration ad. iocs. had been singularly moderate and equitable. It might have been sui)posed that such a reign would terminate peacefully, or at lea.st that no usurper would be allowed to extinguish it by violence, without exciting universal indignation, and stirring up hosts of adversaries in every quarter. The fact was otherwise, and may be regarded as a proof that the people had become indifferent to a change of masters, and were now ready to submit to any yoke whicii might be imposed on them. In the interval between his dethronement and his death. Shah Jehan was almost forgotten. His })ublic works, however, still speak for shahjehani him, and prove him to have been, if not the wi.sest, the most magniticent prince works, who ever held rule in India. At times his expenditure was not only lavish but childi.sh, fis in the instance of the celebrated peacock throne, in the con.stniction of which he is said to have spent above £6,000,000 sterling, chiefly in diamonds and precious stones. A better .splendour was displayed in the new city which he built at Delhi, and the noble structures with which he adorned both that city and Agra. In the latter stands conspicuous above all the Taje Mahal, the mausoleum of his queen Mumtaz Mahal, situated in the midst of extensive gar- dens, on a terrace over- hanging the Jumna, and composed of a lofty marble structure, richly decorated with mosaicf?, and so chaste in desigjn, and imposing in effect, as not to be surpassed in these respects by any edifice in the world.

Interior of Taje Mahal at Agra.'— Oriental Drawing, East India House.

Notwithstanding his lavish expenditure, the revenues,

' "The light to the central apartment is admitted only through double screens of white marble trellis- work, of the most exquisite design; one on the outer, and one on the inner face of the walls. In our climate this would produce nearly complete darkness; but in India, and in a building wholly composed of white marble, this was required to temper the glare that Vol. I.

otherwise would have been intolerable. A s it is, no words can express the chastened beauty uf that central chamber seen in the soft gloom of the subdued liglit that reaches it through the distant and half-closed openings that surround it."— Fergu.sson's Hand-Book of Architecture. " Tavernier saw this building begun and finished, and tells us it occupied 20,000 men for

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