m the city were allowed to
come and exhibit goods to the ladies of the court. But these were
the only glimpses female royalty ever had of the outer world.

No man was ever admitted to the zenana except the emperor. All
domestic work was done by women, who were watched on the outside
by eunuchs and then by soldiers. They had their own place of
worship, the "Gem Mosque" they called it, a beautiful little
structure erected by Shah Jehan, and afterward used as his prison.

The baths are of the most sumptuous character. The walls are
decorated with raised foliage work in colors, silver and gold,
upon a ground of mirrors, and the ceiling is finished with pounded
mica, which has the effect of silver. Fronting the entrance of
the bathrooms are rows of lights over which the water poured in
broad sheets into a basin, then, running over a little marble
causeway, fell over a second cluster of lights into another basin,
and then another and another, five in succession, so that many
ladies were able to bathe in these fascinating fountains at the
same time. Below the baths we were shown some dark and dreary
vaults. In the center of the most gloomy of them there is a pit--a
well--which, the guide told us, has its outlet in the bottom of
the river, three-quarters of a mile away. Over this pit hangs
a heavy beam of wood very highly carved, and in the center is
a groove from which dangles a silken rope. Here, according to
tradition, unfaithful inmates of the harem were hanged, and when
life was extinct the cord was cut and the body fell into the
pit, striking the keen edge of knives at frequent intervals,
so that it finally reached the river in small fragments, which
were devoured by fishes or crocodiles, or if they escaped them,
floated down to the sea. After each execution a flood of water was
turned from the fountains into the pit to wash away the stains.

But let us turn from this terrible place to the jasmine tower
containing apartments of the chief sultana, which overhangs the
walls of the fort and is surpassingly beautiful: a series of
rooms entirely of marble--roof, walls and floor--and surrounded
by a broad marble veranda supported, by noble arches springing
from graceful, slender pillars arranged in pairs and protected
by a balustrade of perforated marble. One could scarcely imagine
anything more dainty than these lacelike screens of stone extremely
simple in design and exquisite in execution. The interior walls
are incrust