Photo 1000/31(3182)

Genre: Architectural Photography

View looking across the moat, past the citadel walls and towards the ruins of the Sat Manzili or Seven Storey Palace. General view, with an Indian man standing beside the muzzle to indicate scale. India Museum no. 1424. Received from Captain Lyon, 7 February 1871.

533. - Beejapore in common with almost all Oriental cities, consisting as they do chiefly of mud houses has more or less a desolate appearance, but by no means so much so as its quondam rival Vijiannuggur. From the Gokla gate the road continues to follow the wall to the right, and soon arrives at the building now used as a hall of justice, here it turns to the left, and enters what was evidently the principal street of the city, and into which the inhabitants are all now collected in one row of houses. Immediately on entering this street on the right is a grand arch, the entrance to the Taj Baori or crown Well, it is a tank 100 yards square and 50 ft deep. The descent to the water being by a flight of stone steps.

Continuing along the road, it is difficult to believe it is really the interior of a once populous city, the houses being so few, and the land on each side being highly cultivated. At a short distance on the left the ruins of the citadel with the moat around it will become visible and on the opposite side of this and inside the citadel wall will be seen the Sat Khund or Haft Mehal 'seven stories' as here represented.