The Way To This Retreat Is So Narrow That Only Two Persons
Could Go Abreast, And Is Almost Inaccessible, Being Very Steep And
Stony.
It is a place of much melancholy, yet of great security and
delight, abounding in peacocks, turtle-doves, wild fowl, and monkies,
which inhabit the rocks impending on every side around.
The 2d of March began the feast of Norsose in the evening. This is the
festival of the new year, the ceremonies of which begin on the first new
moon after, which this year fell together. It is kept in imitation of
the Persian feast of that cause, signifying in that language nine
days, as anciently it continued only for that number; but these are now
doubled. On this occasion, a throne is erected about four feet high in
the durbar court; from the back of which, to the place where the king
comes out from the inner apartments, a space of fifty-six paces long by
forty-three broad is railed in, and covered over by semianes, or
canopies, of cloth of gold, velvet, and rich silk, all joined over
head, and held up by canes covered with similar stuffs. At the upper or
west end, were set out the pictures of the king of England, the queen,
the Princess Elizabeth, the Countesses of Somerset and Salisbury, and of
a citizen's wife of London. Below, there was a picture of Sir Thomas
Smith, governor of the East India Company. The whole floor was laid with
rich Persian carpets of large size, and into this place come all the
great men to wait upon the king, except a few, who were within a smaller
railed space, right before the throne, appointed to receive his
commands.
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