Page:The Land of the Veda.djvu/129

Rh of two angels, also represented in various colored gems. Even the tent-poles were adorned with jewels, and the pins were of massive gold. The whole formed a load for several elephants. The gorgeous trophy was afterward broken up by Adil Shah, the nephew and successor of the captor. Its place in the Dewan Khass was afterward supplied by another of inferior value, and by the Crystal Throne, which the writer saw in 1857.

Inside of the entrance of the Khass, inscribed in black letters upon a slab of alabaster, is the Persian couplet, in the hyperbolical language of the East, quoted by Moore in his Lalla Rookh. Moore introduces it in “The Light of the Harem,” where the Emperor Jehangeer and his beloved and beautiful Nourmahal, in their visit to the Valley of Cashmere, happen to fall into a sort of lovers' quarrel, and in the evening she vails herself, and takes her place among the beautiful female singers who have come to entertain the reclining Emperor—one of whom seems disposed to avail herself of the opportunity to attract the wounded and wandering love of Jehangeer in a wrong direction, when the vailed Nourmahal, at the pause, strikes her lute and sings sweetly:

Jehangeer's heart is touched, and there ensues a happy reconciliation. Unfortunately, however, for the poet, there is an anachronism here, and a violation of historic truth, as well as an inadequate translation, for Shah Jehan, who built the Dewan Khass, and inscribed the words on the slab of alabaster over the entrance, was the son of Jehangeer, and it is not likely that his father's wife could quote the words before they were composed. Moore's