Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 5.10.5

5.10.5

When you have entered a little way into the pavilion approaching toward the garden, you find yourself under a lofty cupola, surrounded above with galleries, and having two divans or platforms below, one on the right, the other on the left, both of them raised eight or ten French feet from the ground. Opposite to the entrance from the street is a large open arch, by which you enter a walk which divides nearly the whole of the garden into two equal parts. This walk or terrace is wide enough to admit six coaches abreast; it is paved with large and hard square stones, raised about eight French feet above the garden; and divided the whole length by a canal faced with hewn stone and ornamented with fountains placed at certain intervals. After advancing twenty-five or thirty paces on this terrace, it is worth while to turn round and view the back elevation of the pavilion, which, though not comparable to the front, is still very splendid, being lofty and of a similar style of architecture. On both sides of the pavilion, along the garden wall, is a long and wide gallery, raised like a terrace, and supported by a number of low columns placed near each other. Into this gallery the poor are admitted three times a week during the rainy season to receive the alms founded in perpetuity by Chah-Jehan.