Crossing the drawbridge, the visitors came to the Palace of Justice, built
by Akbar. It is six hundred feet long, enclosed by a colonnade of arches,
like a cloister. It is now used as a military storeroom, divided by brick
walls, and filled with cannon and shot. The English have made a sort of
museum here; and the superior officer who did the honors to his lordship
showed them the throne of Akbar, a long marble seat, inlaid with precious
stones, with a graceful canopy of the same material over it; and the boys
thought he would have had a more comfortable seat if he had put off the
period of his reign to the present time.
The gates of Somnath, twelve feet high, were beautiful pieces of carving.
They once guarded the entrance to the temple of Krishna, in Goojerat; but
in the tenth century they were carried off by Sultan Mahmoud, of Ghuzni, in
Afghanistan. He captured Somnath, and destroyed all the idols. The Brahmins
offered him immense bribes if he would spare the statue of Krishna; but he
spurned the money, and destroyed the image with his own hands. He found
that it was hollow, and filled with jewels of great value.
When the English conquered Afghanistan, Lord Ellenborough sent the gates to
Agra; but some think they were not the gates of the temple, but of
Mahmoud's tomb, for they were made of a wood that does not grow in India,
and they are not of Hindu workmanship.
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