The Seven Cities of Delhi
two hot rooms, heated from below by furnaces. The inlaid floors and dados are very beautiful ; the paintings, which formerly adorned the upper part of the walls and the roofs, have been hidden by whitewash.
Pearl Mosque. — Next to the baths is a lovely little "Pearl" Mosque, built by Aurangzeb as a private chapel for himself and the ladies of the zenana, who could obtain entrance by a door (now closed) to the right of the covered portion. On the floor are marble slabs of a prayer-carpet pattern, showing each person where to stand, and in the centre of the open court is the usual ablutionary basin, fed by water from below. The door is of bronze, and a flight of stairs close by leads to the top of the walls, whence it is apparent that the outer sides of the walls conform to the lines of the baths and other buildings, but the inner sides are carefully oriented towards Mecca ; the difference in direction is but slight, but was too important to be overlooked. The marble domes look heavy, but they have replaced domes of copper gilt, which were sold by auction for a mere song, after the siege in 1857. A similar fate befell the dome over the Octagon Tower and the small domes on the Diwan Khas, all of which were of gilded copper plates.
