Now the day after our coming, a Brachmine,[109] which is an Indian priest (for such are commonly used for clerks and messengers among the Moguls), brought to us the emperor’s reply to our letter, bidding us welcome very graciously, and counselling us to take certain days to refresh ourselves after our journey, and then he would admit us to an audience. And this counsel we followed, diverting ourselves with going about and examining the place, with one of the Armenians, a pretty young fellow enough, and one that spake English passably, having been bred up in the house they have at Surat, for our _druggerman_,[110] which is interpreter. For there are in Agra a prodigious number of _metchids_ or _mosqueys_,[111] where the Moguls used to worship, and chief among ’em that wonder of the world and delight of all beholders,[112] built by the late emperor Shaw Jehaun,[113] the father of Auren Zeeb, for the glorification and remembering of his queen. But so strict is the watch maintained over these temples, that it cost us prodigious pains to see more than the outside only of one or two, and this with much reluctance on the part of their keepers and of those that we found worshipping therein. Likewise we visited many tombs of holy men among the Moors, that are held in great honour and veneration, and divers fine public baths, where you may be bathed and anointed in the greatest luxury imaginable for a trifling small sum. Then lastly, when the day was come that the emperor had appointed, we took our presents that we had brought for his majesty, and being borne in _palenkeens_ in our best array, started for to come to his court. The palace of the Great Mogul is a mighty pretty piece of building, well fortified against all attempts, and ornamented with much curious work after the Moorish fashion. Passing in at a great gate that looks towards the west, we were showed the _cistery_,[114] that is, the emperor’s place of decreeing justice, where all men, even the poorest, may demand admittance, and seek redress at his hands. And next we saw a great tower, covered all over with gold, where the emperor’s treasury is kept, and after this they brought us into a court paved with marble of divers colours, very pretty, and at the upper end thereof, under a rich portal with pillars of silver, we found the Great Mogul himself, sitting upon a platform with silver railings, and a carpet thereon fringed with gold. So bright and shining was the magnificence of this throne and of all the appointments on’t, that for a time our eyes were verily dazzled thereby; but I was able to perceive that the emperor was a man beyond middle age, very grave and reverend of countenance, and most majestical of person. His habit consorted well with his air, being a cassock of white satin, very delicately flowered, and oddly wrought with broidery of silk and gold, and a _shash_[115] of rich woollen stuff about his middle. His _turbant_ was of gold cloth, with a string of great pearls woven