Chap. IV.

INDIA.

445

noble building of its class, nnder tbe ruthless barbarism of our rule.
Mosques we have generally spared, and sometimes tombs, because they
were unsuited. to our economic purposes, ancl it would not answer to
offend the religious feelings of the natives. But when we deposed the
kings and appropriated their revenues, there was no one to claim these
now useless abodes of splendour. And as it was found cheaper either
to pull them down, or use them as residences or arsenals, than to keep
them up, few, very few, remain for the admiration of posterity.

At Mandoo there are some noble remains of the palace, designed
with the same simple grandeur which characterises the mosque (wood-
cut No. 342), but built on even a more massive and gigantic scale. At
Beejapore the palaces are nearly entire, though of a later age ; and con-
siderable fragments still exist of the old palaces of Jaunpore, Gaur,
and the older capitals of the race. Delhi too is full of fragments ; but
nothing is so entire as to merit now the name of a palace, or which would
enable us to restore their arrangement in anything like completeness.

The troubled reign of Humayun does not seem to have been
favourable to palace-building, at least on a permanent scale, though we
learn from Ferishtah that he erected a great palace containing 7 halls
of audience, each dedicated to one of the 7 planets ; and tliat he gave
public audience in each of these according io the planet of the day.
The building seems to have been splendid ; but it may have been com-
posed of ephemeral materials.

Akbar, however, was one of the greatest builders of his race, and
left few of his capitals—except perhaps Delhi—without some fit monu-
rnent of his greatness. Tlis buildings are all very similar to one
another in style, but very unlike those either before or after his time.
They do not possess the elaborate minuteness of the Hindus, nor the
giant strength of the Pathans; still less do they show the refined
elegance of the works executed under Shah Jehan; but they unite
all these different qualities into one style in a manner that is very
remarkable, standing as it were between two ages, and combining
the feelings of two religions in a way that is not only very instructive,
but produces a style unrivalled bj^ anything of its kind in any part
of the world.

Akbar’s favourite and principal residence was at Futtehpore Sicri,
near Agra, where he built the great mosque mentioned above, and in
its immediate proximity erected a palace, or rather a group of palaces,
which in their way are more interesting than any other in India. Ao
general design seems to have been followed in their erection ; but
pavilion after pavilion was addcd,. and residences either for himself or
for his favourite wives. These were built as the taste of the moment
dictated, some in the ITindu, some in the Moslem style. The palace
has no pretension to be regarded as one great architectural object; but
as a picturesque group of elegant buildings it is unrivalled. All are
built of the red sandstone of the hill on which the palac-e stands; no
marble is used, and no stucco either inside or out, all the ornaments
being honestly carved in relief on the stone, and the roofs as well as
the floors all of the same material, ancl characterised by that singular