Page:The tourist's guide to Lucknow.djvu/172

Rh they rose in radiant piles from the floor. In the midst of them were temples of silver filagree, eight or ten feet high and studded with precious stones. There were ancient banners of the Nawábs of Oudh, with sentences from the Koran embroidered on cloth of gold: gigantic bands of silver covered with talismanic words; sacred shields studded with the name of God; swords of Khorasan steel, lances, and halberds; the turbans of renowned Commanders; and several pulpits of peculiar sanctity."

During the Moharrum festival the Imambara illuminated, and one night, the sixth of the new moon, is epecially set apart for European visitors as at the Shah Najaf and Husainabad.

The Rumi Darwaza, or Turkish gate, is supposed to be a facsimile of one of the gates of Constantinople, but persons who have visited Constantinople declare that there is no gate standing there now which at all corresonds with this one, and the only inference to be drawn that the Nawáb-Vazier, Asuf-ud-daulá, was probably the victim of a deception. This gate is a structure of massive proportions, faced on both sides, with some imitation of leaves which rise from the base and radiate above the spring line forming a pointed arch. The archway is surmounted by a turret which completes the design Both the Rumi Darwaza and the Great Imambara were begun in a year of tremendous famine, and were partly undertaken in order to provide the starving population with bread.

This tower, which is of recent date (1881), is fully detailed below:—

At the suggestion, and through the influence of the