Page:Report of a Tour Through the Bengal Provinces of Patna, Gaya, Mongir and Bhagalpur; The Santal Parganas, Manbhum, Singhbhum and Birbhum; Bankura, Raniganj, Bardwan and Hughli in 1872-73.djvu/55

Rh compartments, and bordered by long large blocks of grey, coarse, chiselled granite. The blocks of stone are secured, or rather were once secured, to each other by iron cramps.

The masjid is entirely of brick. It occupies the centre of the west end of a large court-yard which once had long and magnificent ranges of cloisters on the other three sides, and the remainder of the west side not taken up by the masjid proper. This great court-yard had two gates to the east and south.

The cloisters have long ago disappeared, all except a fragment at the north-east corner, from which it appears that the last corner towers were surmounted by flattish round domes; the cloisters, however, appear to have had pyramidal roofs, and three such now exist touching the last tower in the existing fragment of the north-east corner.

The cloisters were all probably more than one storey in height.

The two gateways were very high and ornamented with glazed tiles. Their roofs were surmounted by several small flattish domes, somewhat in the style of the Delhi Jamai Masjid of Shah Jehan. The gates were flanked by little square pavilions with pyramidal roofs covered with glazed coloured tiles. The north face of the quadrangle now consists of small pavilions with pyramidal roofs on projecting towers connected by low railings of stone. Whether cloisters once existed on this side is uncertain; I rather think they did, but having become ruined have been replaced by the present arrangement of open pavilions connected by low railings. This side of the quadrangle overhangs the river, which washes the base of the great massive revetments which rise sheer out of it.

The revetments are very strong and massive, and rise to a great height, as the site on which the masjid is built is comparatively very high. These revetments run on, with various but unimportant interruptions, a long distance, right away to the great revetments and towers of the citadel or kila at the end of the city, the ruins of which still frown over the river below in shattered majesty. This citadel or kila is now the highest spot within modern Patna, and is a confused mass of ruined houses and brickbat heaps, presenting an aspect of desolation which, far from being relieved, is only aggravated by the existing houses yet inhabited, but mostly in a ruinous condition. No friendly vegetation hides the naked rawness of the ruins there.

The masjid described above is very picturesque (