1839.] New Nizamut Palace of Moorshedabad. 555 



and one (the lowest) closed in, and forming dbdarkhdnesh and other 

 useful offices.. 



7- To the north front are two smaller porticoes (to the wings) of 

 four columns each, and intermediately between the centre and wings 

 on either front, receding colonnades ; which also form leading features 

 of the end fronts of the building. 



8. To all the above colonnades, including the .porticoes, are con- 

 tinuous balconies to the third floor, four and a half feet wide, of light 

 appearance but of great strength, being constructed of iron beams or 

 cantilevers from nineteen to twenty-one inches apart, inserted in the 

 walls between stones to a depth of one and a half foot, and supported 

 on brackets at intervals, the rest of the material of the floor being of 

 flat bar iron. The floor is composed of tiles, terras, and marble, 

 confined by a plate or band of iron. The railing is partly of iron and 

 partly of teak ; the main supports and some of the rails being of the 

 former, upheld by brackets branching from the cantilevers. 



9. The spaces over the doors and windows within the colonnades, 

 as well as those of the treble windows in the exterior walls, are reliev- 

 ed by panels, in which are inserted ornaments of various descriptions, 

 in relief of good design, and extremely well executed. 



10. There are two open courts in the interior of the building, 

 seventy-two by fifty-two feet, finished in every respect in the same 

 style as the exterior, having substantial drains all round, communi- 

 cating with large covered ones externally, which are carried to a con- 

 siderable distance, and empty themselves into the river. 



11. Round the exterior of the building there is a platform of the 

 finest masonry, bricken-edge, seven feet wide, from which spring 

 small flights of stone steps to the height of the plinth, leading to the 

 entrances in the several compartments of the edifice ; outside of which 

 is a roadway or walk, of corresponding breadth, composed of Jcoah 

 nine inches in depth. The plinth of the building has oval flue open- 

 ings of twenty-two by eighteen inches, furnished with strong iron 

 gratings; — where flights of steps interfere, three of the step-facings 

 in each have gratings, of eighteen inches in length, fixed into 

 them. 



12. The interior comprises a basement floor, from thirteen feet to 

 thirteen feet three inches in height to the beams ; a principal floor, 

 from twenty-one feet nine inches to twenty-two feet in height, to the 

 ceilings ; and a third floor of the same height as the latter. 



13. The principal entrance is from the north portico into a vestibule 

 thirty-six feet by twenty-seven feet, having a geometrical stone stair- 

 case at either side, seven feet six in width, with iron railing and 



