The throne projects into the hall from the back in front of the large central arch; it is raised ten feet above the floor, and is about ten feet wide, and covered by a marble canopy, all beautifully inlaid with mosaic work exquisitely finished, but now much dilapidated.  The room or recess in which the throne stands is open to the front, and about fifteen feet wide and six deep.  There is a door at the back by which the Emperor entered from his private apartments, and one on his left, from which his prime minister or chief officer of state approached the throne by a flight of steps leading into the hall.  In front of the throne, and raised some three feet above the floor, is a fine large slab of white marble, on which one of the secretaries stood during the hours of audience to hand up to the throne any petitions that were presented, and to receive and convey commands.  As the people approached over the intervening one hundred and twenty yards between the gateway and the hall of audience they were made to bow down lower and lower to the figure of the Emperor, as he sat upon his throne, without deigning to show by any motion of limb or muscle that he was really made of flesh and blood, and not cut out of the marble he sat upon.

The marble walls on three sides of this recess are inlaid with precious stones representing some of the most beautiful birds and flowers of India, according to the boundaries of the country when Shah Jahan built this palace, which included Kabul and Kashmir, afterwards severed from it on the invasion of Nadir Shah.[23]

On the upper part of the back wall is represented, in the same precious stones, and in a graceful attitude, a European in a kind of Spanish costume, playing upon his guitar, and in the character of Orpheus charming the birds and beasts which he first taught the people of India so well to represent in this manner.  This I have no doubt was intended by Austin de Bordeaux for himself.  The man from Shiraz, Amanat Khan, who designed all the noble Tughra characters in which the passages from the Koran are inscribed upon different parts of the Taj at Agra, was permitted to place his own name in the same bold characters on the right-hand side as we enter the tomb of the Emperor and his queen.  It is inscribed after the date, thus, A.H. 1048 [A.D. 1638-9], ‘The humble fakir Amanat Khan of Shiraz.’  Austin was a still greater favourite than Amanat Khan; and the Emperor Shah Jahan, no doubt, readily acceded to his wishes to have himself represented in what appeared to him and his courtiers so beautiful a picture.[24]

The Diwan-i-Khas, or hall of private audience, is a much more splendid building than the other from its richer materials, being all built of white marble beautifully ornamented.  The roof is supported upon colonnades of marble pillars.  The throne stands in the centre of this hall, and is ascended by steps, and covered by a canopy, with four artificial peacocks on the four corners.[25] Here, thought I,