I visited the celebrated mosque known by the name of Jami (Jumma) Masjid, a fine building raised by Shah Jahan, and finished in six years, A.H. 1060, at a cost of ten lakhs of rupees or one hundred thousand pounds.  Money compared to man’s labour and subsistence is still four times more valuable in India than in England; and a similar building in England would cost at least four hundred thousand pounds.  It is, like all the buildings raised by this Emperor, in the best taste and style.[19] I was attended by three well-dressed and modest Hindoos, and a Muhammadan servant of the Emperor.  My attention was so much taken up with the edifice that I did not perceive, till I was about to return, that the doorkeepers had stopped my three Hindoos.  I found that they had offered to leave their shoes behind, and submit to anything to be permitted to follow me; but the porters had, they said, strict orders to admit no worshippers of idols; for their master was a man of the book, and had, therefore, got a little of the truth in him, though unhappily not much, since his heart had not been opened to that of the Koran.  Nathu could have told him that he also had a book, which he and some fourscore millions more thought as good as his or better; but he was afraid to descant upon the merits of his ‘shastras’, and the miracles of Kishan Ji [Krishna], among such fierce, cut-throat-looking people; he looked, however, as if he could have eaten the porter, Koran and all, when I came to their rescue.  The only volumes which Muhammadans designate by the name of the book are the Old and New Testaments, and the Koran.

I visited also the palace, which was built by the same Emperor.  It stands on the right bank of the Jumna, and occupies a quadrangle surrounded by a high wall built of red sandstone, about one mile in circumference; one side looks down into the clear stream of the Jumna, while the others are surrounded by the streets of the city.[20] The entrance is by a noble gateway to the west;[21] and facing this gateway on the inside, a hundred and twenty yards distant, is the Diwan-i-Amm, or the common hall of audience.  This is a large hall, the roof of which is supported upon four colonnades of pillars of red sandstone, now white-washed, but once covered with stucco work and gilded.  On one of these pillars is shown the mark of the dagger of a Hindoo prince of Chitor, who, in the presence of the Emperor, stabbed to the heart one of the Muhammadan ministers who made use of some disrespectful language towards him.  On being asked how he presumed to do this in the presence of his sovereign he answered in the very words almost of Roderic Dhu,

    I right my wrongs where they are given,
    Though it were in the court of Heaven.[22]