508 The Mausoleum of the Nuwabs Ali-Verdi Khan, fyc. [No. 6. 



grand daughters of the Nuwab, dated in December 1790, a copy of 

 which is preserved amongst the records, in the hands of the mookh- 

 tyar in charge of the cemetery ; he is said to have had only one child, 

 a daughter, named Umoot-is-Saira Begum, who died during the life 

 time of her mother Lootf-oon-nissa Begum. The graves may, however, 

 be the resting places of this lady and one of her four daughters by 

 Nuwab Assud Ali Khan, whom she married in 1767. 



The mausoleum is a neat brick building, with little of oriental 

 architecture in its form, excepting the four small minarets at the 

 corner, and its projecting eaves {vide Plan II.). It is raised two feet 

 from the ground, and approached by small flights of steps to the east 

 and west. The principal portion, in which are the tombs, is a square 

 of about 37 feet divided into an enclosed verandah on the east and 

 west side, the whole length of the building, and two smaller verandahs 

 on the north and south, leaving thus a square room in the centre 

 which contains the tomb of Ali-Verdi Khan. The tomb rooms are 

 again closed in by a verandah with five arched openings in each face. 



All the tombs in the mausoleum are covered with palls of dark 

 cloth, spangled with flowers and other ornaments in gold and silver 

 leaf ; lights are continually kept burning, and fresh flowers daily strew- 

 ed on the graves. 



Ali-Verdi Khan died at Moorshedabad at the age of 80, at 2 p. m. 

 on Saturday the 9th Rujub A. H. 1169 (A. D. 9th April, 1756), and 

 was buried at 2 o'clock, on the morning of the 10th. His first rest- 

 ing place does not appear to have been in the mausoleum, but on the 

 centre platform in the outer quadrangle near the grave of his mother. 

 On the mausoleum being completed by Sooraj-ood-Dowlah, the body 

 was disinterred and laid in its present tomb (a. PL II.) under the 

 black stone, which is said to have burst assunder with a loud report 

 on being lowered over the corpse of the aged Nuwab. The crack is 

 still shown to visitors ! 



Ali-Verdi, according to tradition at Moorshedabad, is said to have 

 died of a sickness called Istiska (&~L*»), which I understood to 

 indicate dropsy, but which was described to me, to have been a dis- 

 ease of a most painful and lingering nature, where an unsatiable and 

 unquenchable craving for water, carried off its victim in great agony 

 even in the act of drinking. 



