132 
THE ORIENTAL ANNUAL.’ 
sitated to appropriate the costly halls of the regal 
palace for ammunition stores and magazines; they 
have displayed sufficient good taste and regard for 
the religious feelings of the Mussulmans to preserve 
sacred and untouched this most elegant place of wor- 
ship. It receives its name from the material of 
which it is constructed, being entirely of white mar- 
ble, highly polished, and which, under the dazzling 
rays of a torrid sun, has in truth all the appearance 
of pearl. It stands nearly in the centre of the citadel, 
and forms a most enticing object of admiration amid 
the tottering and prostrate ruins of noble architecture 
all round it ; but the exterior view of it gives but a 
faint foretaste of the exceeding symmetry and ex- 
quisite finish of the work within. It has all the air 
of fairy architecture, and carries imagination back to 
those shadowy images which in childhood we had en- 
deavoured to embody from the glowing pages of the 
Arabian Nights. 
No sooner has the beholder passed the arched 
doors and entered upon the terraced quadrangle, 
than he finds himself shut in on all sides with 
walls of the purest white marble, delicately carved, 
and built in chaste and symmetrical proportion. 
The eye has nothing hut this radiant material to rest 
upon except the blue vault of heaven above, and its 
reflection in the basin of holy water in the centre of 
the court. A beautiful arcade runs round three sides 
of this area, and on the fourth side is the Musjid 
itself — the holy house of prayer. The design of this 
