Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/119



"The whole of this extensive boundary, including the fort and city, contains innumerable tanks and ponds of various sizes. The Saugur-dighee tank is a mile in length, by half a mile in breadth; three or four others, with this, are the best and largest cisterns of water in the place.

"At one of the tanks the Musselmāns make offerings to the alligators, which has made them so tame, they come to the shore and take away what is offered.

"The following observations on the ruins which still remain sufficiently entire, commence with the great

"GOLDEN MOSQUE.

"This noble building appears to stand nearly in the centre of this ancient capital. It is built of brick, but is ornamented on all sides with a kind of black porphyry stone. This mosque appears to have been surrounded with a wall, which, on the east side of the building, formed a court about three hundred feet in length and two hundred and fifty in breadth. The mosque itself formed a building one hundred and seventy feet in length from north to south, and one hundred and thirty in breadth. These dimensions are easily ascertained, as the north and south doors of the mosque, which mark its length, remain entire, and the breadth is easily computed from the one range and the ruins of the rest which yet remain. Its height within is about sixty feet, but it is probable that the spires of its lofty domes rose to the height of one hundred feet from the ground. Its internal structure presents a singular appearance. Its breadth is divided into six ranges resembling the aisles of a church. These aisles are in breadth twelve feet; and as they extend the whole length of the building from north to south, they are somewhat better than a hundred and fifty feet in length.

"The six walls which once divided them and supported the roof were eight feet in thickness, built of brick, and covered with black porphyry to a considerable height. These ranges of aisles are not formed of solid masonry; each of them is intersected by eleven openings from east to west, of somewhat more than six feet in breadth. This, in reality, divided the wall