nd beasts which he first taught the
people of India so well to represent in this manner. This I have no
doubt was intended by Austin de Bordeaux for himself. The man from
Shiraz, Amanat Khan, who designed all the noble Tughra characters in
which the passages from the Koran are inscribed upon different parts
of the Taj at Agra, was permitted to place his own name in the same
bold characters on the right-hand side as we enter the tomb of the
Emperor and his queen. It is inscribed after the date, thus, A.H.
1048 [A.D. 1638-9], 'The humble fakir Amanat Khan of Shiraz.' Austin
was a still greater favourite than Amanat Khan; and the Emperor Shah
Jahan, no doubt, readily acceded to his wishes to have himself
represented in what appeared to him and his courtiers so beautiful a
picture.[24]

The Diwan-i-Khas, or hall of private audience, is a much more
splendid building than the other from its richer materials, being all
built of white marble beautifully ornamented. The roof is supported
upon colonnades of marble pillars. The throne stands in the centre of
this hall, and is ascended by steps, and covered by a canopy, with
four artificial peacocks on the four corners.[25] Here, thought I, as
I entered this apartment, sat Aurangzeb when he ordered the
assassination of his brothers Dara and Murad, and the imprisonment
and destruction by slow poison of his son Muhammad, who had so often
fought bravely by his side in battle. Here also, but a few months
before, sat the great Shah Jahan to receive the insolent commands of
this same grandson Muhammad when flushed with victory, and to offer
him the throne, merely to disappoint the hopes of the youth's father,
Aurangzeb. Here stood in chains the graceful Sulaiman, to receive his
sentence of death by slow poison with his poor young brother Sipihr
Shikoh, who had shared all his father's toils and dangers, and
witnessed his brutal murder.[26] Here sat Muhammad Shah, bandying
compliments with his ferocious conqueror, Nadir Shah, who had
destroyed his armies, plundered his treasury, stripped his throne,
and ordered the murder of a hundred thousand of the helpless
inhabitants of his capital, men, women, and children, in a general
massacre. The bodies of these people lay in the streets tainting the
air, while the two sovereigns sat here sipping their coffee, and
swearing to the most deliberate lies in the name of their God,
Prophet, and Koran;--all are now dust; that of the oppressor
undisting