Note 121 — PART I.—DESCRIPTION.

On the 3rd of March, says Roe, the Mughal was to have entered Mándu. But all had to wait for the good hour fixed by the astrologers. From the 6th of March, when he entered Mándu, till the 24th of October, the emperor Jehángír, with Sir Thomas Roe in attendance, remained at Mándu.121 According to Roe before the Mughal visited Mándu the hill was not much inhabited, having more ruins by far than standing houses.122 But the moving city that accompanied the emperor soon overflowed the hill-top. According to Roe Jehángír’s own encampment was walled round half a mile in circuit in the form of a fortress, with high screens or curtains of coarse stuff, somewhat like Aras hangings, red on the outside, the inside divided into compartments with a variety of figures. This enclosure had a handsome gateway and the circuit was formed into various coins and bulwarks. The posts that supported the curtains were all surmounted with brass tops.123 Besides the emperor’s encampment were the noblemen’s quarters, each at an appointed distance from the king’s tents, very handsome, some having their tents green, others white, others of mixed colours. The whole composed the most curious and magnificent sight Roe had ever beheld.124 The hour taken by Jehángír in passing from the Dehli Gate to his own quarters, the two English miles from Roe’s lodge which was not far from the Dehli Gate to Jehángír’s palace, and other reasons noted below make it almost certain that the Mughal’s encampment and the camps of the leading nobles were on the open slopes to the south of the Sea Lake between Báz Bahádur’s palace on the east and Songad on the west. And that the palace at Mándu from which Jehángír wrote was the building now known as Báz Bahádur’s palace.125 A few months before it reached Mándu the imperial camp had turned the whole valley of Ajmír into a magnificent city,126 and a few weeks before reaching Mándu at Thoda, about fifty miles south-east of Ajmír, the camp formed a settlement not less in circuit than twenty English miles, equalling in size almost any town in Europe.127 In the middle of the encampment were all sorts of shops so regularly disposed that all persons knew where to go for everything.