ing the palace of the Christian woman, stands the Panch-Mahal (Five Palaces), consisting of five square platforms, resting on richly carved pillars, and rising one above another in a pyramidal form, to a considerable height. Mr. Sherer supposes it to have been a sleeping place for the servants connected with the palace. Beyond it is a court-yard, paved with large slabs of sandstone, and containing a colossal pachisi-board, such as I have described in speaking of the Palace at Agra. In one corner of the court-yard is a labyrinthine building, of singular design, wherein the ladies of the Emperor's zenana were accustomed to play hide-and-seek. A little further is a sort of chapel, two stories high, and crowned with several cupolas. On entering, however, I found that there was but one story, extending to the dome, with a single pillar in the centre, rising to the height of the upper windows. This pillar has an immense capital of the richest sculpture, three times its diameter, with four stone causeways leading to the four corners of the chapel, where there are small platforms of the shape of a quadrant. Tradition says that this building was used by Akbar as a place for discussing matters of science or religion, himself occupying the capital of the central pillar, while his chief men were seated in the four corners.

The

In this same court is a pavilion, consisting of a pyramidal canopy of elaborately carved stone, resting on four pillars, which have a cornice of peculiar design, representing a serpent. This pavilion approaches as near the Hindu style of building, as is possible, without violating the architecture of the palace, which is a massive kind of Saracenic. It was the station of a Guru, or Hindu Saint, whom Akbar, probably from motives of policy, kept near him. palace of the Sultana of Constantinople is one mass of the most laborious sculpture. There is scarcely a square inch of blank stone in the building. But the same remark would apply to almost the whole of the palace, as well as to that of Beer-Bul. It is a wilderness of sculpture, where invention seems to have been taxed to the utmost to produce new combinations of ornament. Every thing is carved in a sandstone so fine and compact, that, except where injured by man, it appears nearly as sharp as when first chiselled. The amount of labor bestowed on Futtehpore throws the stucco filigrees of the Alhambra quite into the shade. It is unlike any thing that I have ever seen. And yet the very name of this splendid collection of ruins, which cannot be surpassed anywhere, outside of Egypt, was unknown to me, before reaching India !"

The following is the account of the tomb of Sheikh Chishti, Akbar's great friend and adviser, through whose prayers it is said, a son was born to him, the future Jehangir

By this time it was two hours past noon, and I still had the famous Durgah to see. We therefore retraced our steps, and ascended to the highest part of the hill, where the tomb rises like a huge square fortress, overtopping the palace of Akbar himself. We

mounted a long flight of steps, and entered a quadrangle so spacious, so symmetrical, so wonderful in its decorations, that I was filled with amazement. Fancy a paved court-yard, 428 feet in length by 406 in breadth, surrounded with a pillared corridor fifty feet high; one of the noblest gateways in the world, 120 feet high; a triple-domed mosque on one side; a large tank and fountain in the centre, and opposite the great portal, the mother-of-pearl and marble tomb of the Shekh, a miniature palace, gleaming like crystal, with its gilded domes, its ivory pillars, and its wreaths of wonderous, flower-like ornaments, inwrought in marble filigree. The court, with its immense gate, seemed an enchanted fortress, solely erected to guard the precious structure within.

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"We are allowed to enter the inner corridor which surrounds the Shekh's tomb, and to look in, but not to cross the threshold. The tomb, as well as a canopy six feet high, which covers it, is made of mother-of-pearl. The floor is of jasper, and the walls of white marble, inlaid with cornelian. A cloth of silk and gold was spread over it like a pall, and upon this were wreaths of fresh and withered flowers. The screens of marble surrounding the building are the most beautiful in India. They are single thin slabs, about eight feet square, and wrought into such intricate open patterns that you would say they had been woven in a loom. The mosque, which is of older date than the tomb, is very elegant, resembling somewhat the Hall of the Abencerrages in the Alhambra, except that it is much larger, and of white marble, instead of stucco. BushàratAli informed me that the Durgah was erected in one year, from the wealth left by the Shekh Selim-Chishti at his death, and that it cost thirty-seven lacs of rupees-$1,750,000."

A writer so accomplished as Mr. Taylor, who had seen the finest specimens of Saracenic art in Turkey, Egypt and Spain, could not fail highly to appreciate the wonderful excellence of that noblest of monuments, the Taj of Shah Jehan. Writing however apparently in haste,-writing from memory, and at a distance, he has not given us so shining a description as the Taj deserves, or as he himself was capable of writing. He has fallen too into the not uncommon mistake of confounding the Queen of Shah Jehan, with the Nourmahál of Lalla Rookh. Nourmahál, "the light of the Harem," was the daughter of an Affghan noble, and became the wife of Jehangir, the son of Akbar. Before he became emperor, and took the title of Jehangir, "Lord of the world," the son of Akbar had been called Selim, which was his personal name; and in Lalla Rookh, Moore has retained this name as the one by which he was best known in his family circle. Jehangir and Nourmahál have nothing whatever to do with the Taj; they both lie buried at Lahore. Neither of them is worthy to be connected with a structure so renowned. Jehangir was morose, superstitious and cruel. Nourmahál, in spite of SEPT., 1857,

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the halo of poetic beauty thrown around her in Lalla Rookh, was spoiled by prosperity, was a proud, ambitious, intriguing woman, and gave her husband and his kingdom endless trouble. Taj Begum was the niece of Nourmahál, and was married, by the latter's address, to one of the younger sons of Jehangir, the favourite of his grandfather, Akbar. This son ascended the throne on Jehangir's death, and took the title of Shah Jehan. His attachment to his gentle and loving consort was intense; when she died, he was inconsolable, and it was in honour of her memory that he built the finest monument the world ever saw, and called it by her name :

"I am aware of the difficulty of giving an intelligible picture of a building, which has no counterpart in Europe, or even in the East. The mosques and palaces of Constantinople, the domed tent of Omar at Jerusalem, and the structures of the Saracens and Memlooks at Cairo, have nothing in common with it. The remains of Moorish art in Spain approach nearest to its spirit, but are only the scattered limbs, the torso, of which the Taj is the perfect type. It occupies that place in Saracenic art which, during my visit to Constantinople, I mistakenly gave to the Solymanye Mosque, and which, in respect to Grecian art, is represented by the Parthenon. If there were nothing else in India, this alone would repay the journey. * * *

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"The gate to the garden of the Taj is not so large as that of Akbar's tomb, but quite as beautiful in design. Passing under the open demi-vault, whose arch hangs high above you, an avenue of dark Italian cypresses appears before you. Down its centre sparkles a long row of fountains, each casting up a single slender jet. On both sides, the palm, the banyan, and the feathery bamboo mingle their foliage; the song of birds meets your ear, and the odor of roses and lemon-flowers sweetens the air. Down such a vista, and over such a foreground, rises the Taj. *

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“The material is of the purest white marble, little inferior to that of Carrara. It shines so dazzlingly in the sun, that you can scarcely look at it near at hand, except in the morning and evening. Every part—even the basement, the dome, and the upper galleries of the minarets-is inlaid with ornamental designs in marble of different colors, principally a pale brown, and a bluish violet variety. Great as are the dimensions of the Taj, it is as laboriously finished as one of those Chinese caskets of ivory and ebony, which are now so common in Europe. Bishop Heber truly said: "The Pathans designed like Titans, and finished like jewellers.

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"The Taj truly is, as I have already said, a poem. It is not only a pure architectural type, but also a creation which satisfies the imagination, because its characteristic is beauty. Did you ever build a Castle in the Air? Here is one, brought down to earth, and fixed for the wonder of ages; yet so light it seems, so airy, and, when seen from a distance, so like a fabric of mist and sunbeams, with its great dome soaring up, a silvery bubble, about

to burst in the sun, that, even after you have touched it, and climbed to its summit, you almost doubt its reality. The four minarets which surround it are perfect-no other epithet will describe them.”

Our author's acquaintance with the Mohammedan monuments of other lands, has led him naturally to enter on a subject on which few writers have yet spoken; viz. the relation of Saracenic art in India to the same art in Egypt, Spain and Western Asia. Little indeed is known upon the subject, beyond the small circle of scholars who, like Mr. Fergusson, take an enthusiastic interest in every thing which can illustrate the science of architecture. The materials for exhibiting both the progress of the art in India, and its connection with Mohammedan art elsewhere, are abundant, and will, by the aid of photography, be rendered more generally available. Mr. Taylor thus speaks on the subject:

"We in America hear so little of these things, and even the accounts we get from English travellers are generally so confused and unsatisfactory, that the reader must pardon me, if in attempting the description, I lose myself in details. I thought the Alcazar of Seville and the Alhambra of Granada had already presented me with the purest types of Saracenic architecture, but I was mistaken. I found, in India, conceptions of Art far nobler, and embodiments far more successful. There is a Saracenic, as distinctly as there is a Greek and Gothic school of Art-not the inferior, but the equal of these. * * * *

"In comparing these masterpieces of architecture with the Moorish remains in Spain, which resemble them most nearly, I have been struck with the singular fact, that while, at the central seats of the Moslem Empire, art reached but a comparative degree of development, here, in India, and there, on the opposite and most distant frontiers, it attained a rapid and splendid culmination. The capitals of the Caliphs and the Sultans-Bagdad, Cairo, Damascus, and Constantinople-stand far below Agra and Delhi, Granada and Seville, in point of architecture, notwithstanding the latter cities have but few and scattered remains. It is not improbable that the Moorish architects, after the fall of Granada, gradually made their way to the eastward, and that their art was thus brought to India-or, at least, that they modified and improved the art then existing. The conquest of India by Baber, (grandson of Tamerlane and grandfather of Akbar) is almost coeval with the expulsion of the Moors from Granada."

Of the Jain architecture, with its singular domes and tall towers, so simply raised, so beautifully ornamented, and bearing such a close resemblance in structure to the Pelasgian_remains of Mycenae and Etruria, our author has not spoken. He came across but one specimen of it, in the elaborately carved cloisters. near the Kuttub at Delhi, which were appropriated by the

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earliest Pathan sovereigns for their magnificent mosque at that place. Neither has he noticed the special features of the Buddhist remains in various parts of India, especially the immense topes' or tumuli at Bhilsa and Sárnáth. It is scarcely possible to appreciate the early state of the arts in India, without knowing something of these interesting relics; and the reader who would push his enquiries in detail, will find an admirable guide in Fergusson's Illustrated Handbook of architecture, published two years ago. It is only in respect to Saracenic architecture in India, which he compares to similar architecture in Egypt and Spain, that he has made the observations quoted above. They are scarcely sufficient however to give a clear and complete view of the subject, or to enable the scholar on a visit to the North-west, to appreciate the true value of the ruins by which he is surrounded. We shall therefore add here a few observations.

Saracenic art, at length so complete and so beautiful in its own distinctive forms, started at first from other and older styles. In Egypt and in Spain, it took up the Roman forms of building which had hitherto prevailed. In Syria, and subsequently in Turkey, it adopted the Byzantine style, which it found in the Christian churches with which those countries were filled. In Persia, the Sassanian element appears in the oldest remains that are now found. But in India the Tartar conquerors adopted the Hindu style, especially the Jain, and mingled it with the Sassanian forms which they had found prevalent in Central Asia, the first seat of their conquests. All these various forms were seized and appropriated to the peculiar demands of Mohammedan worship. In the mosques, a covered space was required for prayer, the chief wall of which, ornamented by one or more niches, as Keblahs, should be placed towards Mecca. In front of this was placed an open court, with a verandah on one or more of its three sides. On the roof was placed a dome; and on the west, where the call to prayers was made by the human voice, minarets soon sprang up to make the muezzin more effective. This kind of arrangement seems to have prevailed everywhere in respect to mosques; though modified as to details. In regard to palaces and tombs, the Musalman style in different countries displays much wider differences, evidently derived from the habits and manners of the country, or people by whom they were erected. In this way there sprang up various branches of Saracenic art, the history and developments of which will well repay attentive examination. But as communication increased between the different countries of the Mohammedan world, the differences were to a considerable extent softened down, the foreign elements