Travels in India (Tavernier) 19.9

19.9

The Tasimacan is a large bazaar, consisting of six large courts all surrounded with porticoes, under which there are chambers for the use of merchants, and an enormous quantity of cottons is sold there. The tomb of this Begum, or sultan queen, is at the east end of the town by the side of the river in a great square surrounded by walls, upon which there is a small gallery, as on the walls of many towns in Europe. This square is a kind of garden divided into compartments like our parterres, but in the places where we put gravel there is white and black marble. You enter this square by a large gate, and at first you see, on the left hand, a beautiful gallery which faces in the direction of Mecca, where there are three or four niches where the Moufti comes at fixed times to pray. A little farther than the middle of the square, on the side of the water, you see three great platforms elevated, one upon the other, with four towers at the four corners of each, and a staircase inside, for proclaiming the hour of prayer. There is a dome above, which is scarcely less magnificent than that of Val de Grace at Paris. It is covered within and without with white marble, the middle being of brick. Under this dome there is an empty tomb, for the Begum is interred under a vault which is beneath the first platform.