Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 8 (2nd edition).pdf/520

 510 L UCA’NO W CITY.

the fort by the great Rumi Darwin, a broad road near the Gtintti, a quarter of a mile in length, conducts to the gate of the outer quadrangle. A spectator standing :1 little to the west of the road can take in at a single view the great [mambzira of Asaf~ud-daulxi and the Rtimi Darwin to the right, with the Huséinabéd mausoleum and the lama Masjid to the left. The whole forms one of the ﬁnest architectural prospects in the world. This king also laid out a splendid road, which leads from the Chattar Manzil through the fort along the river bank to his Imjmbﬁra. A nugnihcent tank, standing beside the road, dates from the same reign. Ali Shah likewise began the erection of a mosque, at a short distance from his mausoleum, designed to surpass the Jami Masjid of Delhi in size; but he did not live to complete it, and it stands still half built, with the scaﬂ'olding rotting away outside, untouched from the day of his death. The Szit Khanda or ‘ Seven-storied TWer,’ another of Ali Shah’s projected works, remains similarly unﬁnished, only the fourth storey having reached its completion.

Amjad Ali Shah. the fourth king (r84r), made a metalled road to Cawnpur, built his own mausoleum at Hazratganj, and laid down an iron bridge across the Gtimti. This bridge was brought out from England by order of Ghﬁziud-din Haidar, who, however, died before it arrived. His son, Nasir-ud-din Haidar, directed that it should he put up opposite the Residency, where a small temple and glm't now stand; but the operations for sinking wells to receive the piers proved unsuccessful, and the work was thus delayed till the accession of Amjad Ali.

\l'ajid Ali Shah, the last King of Oudh (1847-1 856), bears the whole opprobrium for the erection of the Kaiser Bégh, the largest, gaudieSt, and most debased of all the Lucknow palaces. It was commenced in r848, and ﬁnished in 1850, at a cost of 80 MM: (say £800,000). Entering by the north-east gateway, which faces the open space in from of the Observatory, the visitor passes through a court to a gate known as the Jilaukhdna, whence the royal processions used to start. Turning to the right, through a screened gateway, he arrives at the Chini Bagh, so called from the China vessels which formerly decorated the gardens. A portal ﬂanked by green mermaids, in the worst European taste of the last century, leads next to the Hazrat Bagh. 0n the right hand lie the Chandiwzili Bdradari, once paved with silver, and the Khﬁs Mukam, as well as the Ilzidshzih Manzil, the special residence of the king, erected by Saddat Ali Khan, but included by Wajid Ali Shah in the plan of his new palace. On the left stands a large confused pile of buildings, called the Chandlakkhi, built by Azim-ulki Khan, the king's barber, and sold by him to the king for 4 ler. It fonned the residence of the queen and the chief coneubines. In this building the rebel Began) held her court, while the British prisoners lay for weeks in one of the stables

—-—-n-a- -