172
bernier’s voyage to the east indies.
me very magnificent, after their way, and as high as that of St. Louis in the ftreet ofSt. Anthony. It is true you do not there fee columns, architraves and cornifhes, cutout after the proportion of thofe five orders of architefture fo religioufly obferved inour palaces: it is a different and particular kind of ftrudture, but fuch an one as wantsno agreeablenefs even in the unufualnefs of its contrivance, and which, in my opinion,would very well deferve a place in our books of architecture. It is almoft nothing butarches upon arches, and galleries over galleries, difpofed and ordered a hundred dif-ferent ways; and yet all appears {lately, well enough contrived and managed. There isnothing that offends the eye; on the contrary all is pleafing, and a man cannot be wearyin beholding it. The laft time I faw it, I was there with one of our French merchants,who alfo could not behold it enough. I durft not tell him my thoughts of it, appre-hending it might have fpoiled my guft, and framed it according to that of Indoftan. —But he being lately come from France , I was very glad to hear him fay, ‘ He had neverfeen any thing fo auguft and bold in Europe .’
After you are fomewhat entered into the pavilion to pafs into the garden, you findyourfelf under a high vault made like a cap, which hath galleries round about andbelow, on the right and left fide, two divans or caufeys, made up of earth of eight orten feet high. Oppofite to the gate there is a great arch quite open, by which youenter into an alley, which cuts almoft the whole garden into two equal parts. Thisalley is by way of terrafs fo large, as that fix coaches can pafs on it a-brealt, pavedwith great fquares of hard ftone, raifed fome eight feet above the garden-plots, anddivided in the middle by a channel walled up with free-ftone, having jets of water atcertain diftances. After you have gone twenty-five or thirty paces upon this alley,turning your eye to behold the entry, you fee the other face of the pavilion, whichthough it be not comparable to that which looks to the ftreet, yet wants not its ftate-linefs, being high and of a ftrufture approaching the other. And on both fides of thepavilion, along the wall of the garden, you fee a long and profound gallery by way ofterrafs, fupported by many low columns near one another. And in this gallery it is,that during the feafon of the rains, the poor are permitted to enter, who comethere thrice a week, receiving alms from a foundation made there by Chah-Jehanfor ever.
Advancing further in this alley, you difcover at a diftance before you a great dome,where is the fepulchre, and below on the right and left hand you fee divers alleys of agarden fet with trees, and feveral parterres covered with flowers. At the end of thisalley, befides the dome before you, you difcover on the right and left two great pa-vilions, built of the fame ftone, and confequently, looking all red as the firft. Thefeare great and fpacious fquare edifices, made by way of terrafs, opening by three arches,and having at the bottom the wall of the garden, fo that you march under them as ifthey were high and large galleries.
I fhall not ftay to defcribe unto you the ornaments within thefe pavilions, becaufein refpedt to their walls, ground-plot, and pavement, they are not much unlike thedome, which I am going to delineate to you, after I {hall have obferved, that betweenthe end of the alley (which we have fpoken of) and the dome, there is a pretty large{pace of a floor, which I call a water-parterre, becaufe that the diverfly cut and figured{tones you march upon, are there inftead of the box-wood of our parterres. And it isfrom the midft of this parterre, that you may conveniently fee a part of this edifice,where the fepulchre is, which remains now to be confidered.
It is a great and vaft dome of white marble, which is near the height of that of ourYal de Grace in Paris , furrounded with many turrets of the fame matter, with flairs
in