Page:Early English adventurers in the East (1917).djvu/153

 due precautions no doubt against her features being seen by the handsome Frank who was exchanging salutations with the Emperor. Not, however, that the ladies of the palace were at all reluctant to display their charms, for on an earlier occasion Roe notes that when he was having audience of Jehangir genuine curiosity prompted some whom he understood to be the Emperor's principal wives to break holes in the reed screen which hung before their box in order to gaze at him. The holes apparently were so large that he was able "to discern the full proportion" of the ladies. "They were," he states, "indifferently white with black hair smooth up (the forehead)," and if there had been no other light to enable him to distinguish their features the diamonds they wore would have sufficed to show them. "When I looked up," he adds, "they retired, and were so merry that I suppose they laughed at me." On the occasion of Jehangir's progress the ladies, apart from Noor Mahal, were not immediately in evidence. They "were carried like paraketoes" in cages half a mile behind their lord and master.

The splendours of the lescar, or imperial camp, are described in vivid language by Roe. As if by a magician's wand a vast canvas city had been called into being. The circuit of the whole was little less than twenty English miles, and within its limits were miles of streets with all sorts of shops "distinguished so by rule that every man knows readily where to seek his wants." There were special quarters allotted to "men of quality," and every trader knew exactly how far from the King's tent he might pitch, the amount of ground he might utilize and the special site which he could occupy. No man, however exalted in rank, was permitted to take up ground nearer