64 SrOETING IN BOTH HEMISPHE11ES. 



CHAPTER V. 



AURUNGABAD MAUSOLEUM OF RABEA DOORANEY TANKS AND GARDENS 

 DANCING GIRLS DOWLATABAD THE CAVES OP ELLORA SHOOTING AT 

 ELLORA RETURN TO JAULNAH. 



MY first expedition to any distance, on obtaining a month's 

 leave of absence, was, in company with several companions, 

 to the city of Aurungabad, to the camp at which place we 

 had received a general invitation from several of the Nizam's 

 European officers who had partaken of our hospitality when 

 passing through Jaulnah. 



We made the journey by short marches, the shooting on 

 the road, particularly hare and partridge, being excellent. 

 Three days sufficed to accomplish the distance, when I beheld, 

 for the first time, these splendid ruins of Moslem architecture, 

 and we pitched our tents in the garden surrounding the beau- 

 tiful mausoleum erected by Aurunzebe to the memory of 

 the lovely Habea Dooraney. A cool fountain was before 

 us, and a perfect forest of rose-trees shed their delicious per- 

 fume around us. The tomb itself, in excellent preserva- 

 tion, with its elegant fretwork of most delicate tracery, and 

 of snow-white marble, with its graceful towers and fairy 

 minarets, stood out in bold and beautiful relief to the 

 surrounding foliage ; and I really thought I had at length 

 realized one of those enchanting scenes that my imagination 

 had created of itself, or formed from the perusal of the 

 Arabian Nights' Entertainment, or similar works of fiction; 

 indeed, it would have been difficult for any description to 

 exceed the reality. 



The approach to the mausoleum, which is modelled from 



