পাতা:ভারত ভ্রমণ - তারিনীকান্ত লাহিড়ী চৌধুরী .pdf/৯৩৬

বিজাপুর। 臀 ডগুলাস সাহেবের গ্রন্থ হইতে বিজাপুর সংক্রান্ত কিয়দংশ উদ্ধত করিয়া । দিলাম, পাঠকগণ ইহা হইতেই আমাদের উক্তির যথার্থতা উপলব্ধি করিতে সক্ষম হইবেন । তিনি লিখিয়াছেন ঃ- ‘The Bijapur which we see to-day is not the Bijapur which Ferishta saw in 1589, more than three hundred years ago. We now see its ghost. But from the palace of the Seven stories we can see the ground he often travelled Over and the place he made his home. That great Street, nearly three miles in length, which bisects the city now crowded on either side with the ruins of tomb, mosque or mahall, was then alive with thousands of people. We are not left in doubt on this point, for we have an exact description by one (Asad Beg, 1604) whom Ferishta knew, for he travelled with him that year to Burhanpur. The bazar which lined this great street was filled with shops, brimful of every commodity that the East and the then West could furnish. Cairo or Damascus to-day may exhibit its counterpart but not its extent. All the luxuries and necessities which the ingenuity of man could devise – Crystal goblets, porcelain vases, gold and silver ornaments, rare essences and perfumes, double distilled spirits from Dabal or Goa, tobacco also and the finest wines from Portugal, with groups of pleasure-seekers, fair faced choristers and dancing girls: everything to fill with wonder the stranger from distant provinces. As he passed the great Suburbs of Shahapur and Torri, now a white heap of ruins, the indications of what awaited him in the palaces of the nobles and the garden houses of the rich, embowered in greenery, ৬৬৩