284 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [June, 1910. 



remate en lugar de almenas la ornan y reparan gruessos, y fuertes 

 espigones de la misma piedra.] At the four corners of this great 

 wall rose as many other Palaces built of large slabs of beautiful and 

 whitest marble, which from more than forty leagues are brought 

 there for those buildings. Some, which I met on the road 

 to Biana, were of such extraordinary length and breadth that 

 they set all in a perspiration many yokes of strong lazy oxen and 

 of ferocious-looking, heavy-honied buffaloes, which in files of 

 twenty and thirty pair were dragging strong unshapely carts. 

 This great wall enclosed a very large quadrangular space, in the 

 centre of which stood a large, high, circular tower, from the 

 centre of which [tower], the famous Geometer [Jerome Veroneo, 

 as I understand it], drawing equal lines, made his perfect cir- 

 cumference with less trouble than Archimedes the Syracusan. 

 This tower, too, is of shining white marble. On this, and on the 

 other works, were generally employed a thousand men, overseers, 

 officials and workmen. A great number of them were likewise 

 occupied, some in laying out curious gardens, others in planting 



shady groves and making orderly plantations of poplar-trees 



(alamedas) ; others, finally in making roads and reservoirs for the 



, without x w 



works. The architect of those structures was a Venetian, named 

 Jerome Veroneo, who went to those parts in the ships from 

 Portugal, and died in the city of Laor [Lahore], shortly before 

 my arrival. Emperor Corrombo gave him large salaries ; 

 but, it is thought that he profited so badly by them that, when 

 he died, they say Father Joseph de Castro, of the Society, a 

 Lombard by birth, found on him much less than was imagined. 

 Of him Fame , fleet messenger of all good and evil tidings , had 

 reported that the Padchd, having sent for him and manifested 

 to him his desire of raising a grandiose and sumptuous monument 

 to his defunct consort, and that for this he should make some 

 designs which he should show him, Veroneo, the Architect, 

 obeyed this order, and within a few days submitted to him in 

 various models of the finest architecture all the perfection of the 

 art which he knew ; but that, having satisfied His Majesty 

 in this matter, he displeased him — according to his barbarous 

 and arrogant pride — by the low estimates which he made ; they 



say also that, growing angry, he ordered him to spend three krors 



crouras] of rupees, i.e., three hundred lakhs [leckas], and that, 

 arhen they were spent , he should let him know — a sum of money 

 so great that one is surprised. But, if the sepulchral apartments 

 sepiilchrales estancias) were, as they said, to be covered with 

 plates of gold, as was the urn in which were already deposited 

 the bones of the Agarene [Mohammedan] Empress, such large 

 mms will not be matter for surprise, — though he, in particular, 

 w\\\ wonder who habitually spends his limited crowns [escudos] 

 after first passing many hours in sundry considerations, seeing 

 that, in as little time as it takes to onm and nlnaa nn^'s mouth. 



