On the floor of the hall is spread a magnificent carpet, apparently of silk, worked in the Persian manner with beautiful patterns, which is round, and of the exact measurement the place requires; likewise in the other rooms the floor is all covered. This hall has no light except what it gets from the anterooms and chambers. Still there are entrances from the centre hall to the apartments and anterooms where there are many windows all giving light, each anteroom having only one window, but that one as large as the whole side of a room, and beautifully fitted. Thus when these doors are open, the palace, or rather the hall, is so brilliant with these beautiful figures, that it is a wonder to see. This is the palace where Assambei used to give audience. About a bowshot from the palace there is a harem of one storey, so large that a thousand women might conveniently live there in different rooms. Among the rooms is a large one like a hall, with the walls all adorned with gold and plaster, looking like emerald and many other colours. The ceiling of this harem is ornamented with gold and ultramarine. From this hall there are many chambers on every side, with all the doors superbly decorated with gold and blue, and many signs and letters made of mother of pearl, in beautiful patterns; and through the centre of this hall flows a stream of pure water, a cubit in breadth and as much deep. On one side of this harem is a summer-house four yards square, beautifully decorated with enamel, gold, and ultramarine blue, in patterns really a wonder to see. Here the queen stays with her maidens to do needlework, according to their custom. And in truth it would be too long and too tedious for me to recount everything about the palace and the harem, which is in the same garden, and has three entrances, one to the south, another to the north, and the third to the east. That to the south is arched with bricks, but not very large, and leads to the garden, the palace being a bowshot distant; passing through the gate, fifteen paces off on the left is a gallery, a bowshot in length and six paces broad, which from one end to the other has seats of the finest marble, with a kind of railing with a design, as an ornament in relief of plaster, of various colours, quite a wonder to behold from the excellence of the workmanship. The roof is all ornamented with gold and plaster. This gallery is supported from one end to the other by columns of fine marble; in front of it there is a fountain, as long as the gallery, of fine marble likewise, which is always full of water, and is twenty-five paces broad. In it there are always four or five couple of swans; round it there are rose trees and jessamines, and a smooth road leading direct to the royal palace.