Page:The Seven Cities of Delhi.djvu/193

Shahjahanabad to-day, in a more or less mutilated condition, In spite of liberal restoration by the British Government. It will, however, be interesting to attempt to reconstruct the palace, as it existed in the days of Aurangzeb, with the later additions to it, up to the time of the Mutiny, after which such destruction was perpetrated, in order to find room for the unlovely barracks.

In our endeavour to do so we shall be aided by the writings of Bernier and Tavernier, who visited Delhi in the seventeenth century, and by those of Sayyad Ahmad Khan, who wrote in 1847. The map opposite page 160 is taken from a plan by a native artist, which is in the records of the India Office; this appears, from internal evidence, to have been drawn about the same time, at all events before 1852.

The magnificent lofty battlemented walls were carried round the city side of the castle to three-storied towers at the north and south ends of the river-face. Between these the wall was made lower, and along a terrace, formed at the level of the top, were the principal residences of the emperor and his ladles, thus assuring a good view of the river, and every chance of cool nights; the days could be spent in underground apartments behind the thickness of the wall. On the city side of the castle there is a deep moat, once kept 143