Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 19.4.3

19.4.3

Returning from Send-brary, I turned a little from the high road for the sake of visiting Achiavel, a country house formerly of the Kings of Kachemire and now of the Great Mogol. What principally constitutes the beauty of this place is a fountain, whose waters disperse themselves into a hundred canals round the house, which is no means unseemly, and throughout the gardens. The spring gushes out of the earth with violence, as if it issued from the bottom of some well, and the water is so abundant that it ought rather to be called a river than a fountain. It is excellent water, and cold as ice. The garden is very handsome, laid out in regular walks, and full of fruit-trees, — apple, pear, plum, apricot, and cherry. Jets-d'eau in various forms and fish-ponds are in great number, and there is a lofty cascade which in its fall takes the form and colour of a large sheet, thirty or forty paces in length, producing the finest effect imaginable ; especially at night, when innumerable lamps, fixed in parts of the wall adapted for that purpose, are lighted under this sheet of water. From Achiavel I proceeded to another royal garden, embellished much in the same manner. One of its ponds contains fish so tame that they approach upon being called, or when pieces of bread are thrown into the water. The largest have gold rings, with inscriptions, through the gills, placed there, it is said, by the celebrated Nour-Mehale, the wife of Jehan-Guyre, grandfather to Aureng-Zebe.