10.  Sleeman’s dates and details require much correction.  The mosque was completed at some time in the year A.H. 979 (May 26, 1571, to May 13, 1572, o.s.), excepting the Buland Darwaza, which was erected in A.H. 983 (1575-6).  The ‘old hermit’, Shaikh Salim, died on February 13, 1572 (Ramazan 27, A.H. 979).  E. W. Smith (op. cit., Part IV, p. 1) gives the correct measurements as follow:  ’Exclusive of the bastions upon the angles it measures 542’ from east to west to the outside of the liwan or sanctuary, or 515’ 3” to the outside of the west main wall (which sets back from the outer wall of the liwan) and 438’ from north to south.  The general plan adopted by Muhammadans for their masjids has been followed.  In the centre is a vast courtyard open to the heavens, measuring 359’ 10” by 438’ 9”, surrounded on the north, south, and east sides by spacious cloisters 38’ 3” in depth, and on the west by the liwan itself, 288’ 2” in length by 65’ deep.  It is said to be copied from one at Makka [Mecca], and was erected according to a chronogram over the main arch in A.D. 1571, or at the same time as Rajah Bir Bal’s house.’  The ‘six years before his death’ of Sleeman’s text should be ‘six months’ (Latif, Agra, p. 149).

11.  The southern portal, known as the Buland Darwaza, or Lofty Gateway, does not match the other gateways.  It was built in A.D. 1575-6 (A.H. 983), and was adorned in A.D. 1601-2 (A.H. 1010) with an inscription recording Akbar’s triumphant return from his campaign in the Deccan.  The date is fixed by a chronogram, preserved in Beale’s work entitled Miftah-ul-tawarikh (Ann.  Progr.  Rep.  A. S. Northern Circle, for 1905-6, p. 34, correcting E. W. Smith).  Correct measurements are: 

From roadway below to pavement   .    .    .   42 feet
From pavement to top of finial   .    .    .  134  "
Breadth across main front   .    .    .    .  130  "
Breadth across back facing the mosque .    .  123  "
Depth   .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .   88 1/2 feet.

Full details, with ample illustrations, are given by E. W. Smith, op. cit., Part IV, chap. ii.  In the original edition of Sleeman a chromolithograph of the gateway is inserted.  Photographs are reproduced in H.F.A., Pl. xcvi, and Fergusson, History of Indian and E. Archit. (ed. 1910), fig. 425.

12.  Fergusson (ed. 1910, vol. ii, p. 297) successfully justifies the vast size of the gateway.  ’The semi-dome is the modulus of the design, and its scale that by which the imagination measures its magnificence.’

The cramped staircases criticized by Sleeman are those ascending from the pavement to the roof, one on the north-west, and the other on the north-east side of the gate.  Each flight has 123 steep steps.