stone-cutter," who may either have been Italian, Turkish, or Persian. As for the flowers, represented in bas-relief on the marble panels, it has been said that they are not to be found in India. Now these flowers, as near as they can be identified, are the tulip, the iris (both natives of Persia), and the lotus. But I noticed a curious feature in the sculpture, which makes it clear to me that the artist was a native. The flowers lack perspective, which would never have been the fault of an Italian artist of Shah Jehan's time-about the middle of the seventeenth century. Bishop Heber has declared that he recognised Italian art in the ornaments of the Táâje, but he declared also that its minarets have no beauty, that the fort of Agra is built of granite, and fell into many other glaring errors, both of taste and observation, which I have no time to point out.

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The dome of the Táâje contains an echo more sweet, pure, and prolonged than that in the Baptistry of Pisa, the finest in Europe. A single musical tone, uttered by the voice, floats and soars overhead, in a long, delicious undulation, fainting away so slowly that hear it after it is silent-as you see, or seem to see, a lark you have been watching, after it is swallowed up in the blue of heaven. I pictured to myself the effect of an Arabic or Persian lament for the lovely Noor Jehan, sung over her tomb. The responses that would come from above, in the pauses of the song, must resemble the harmonies of angels in Paradise. The hall, notwithstanding the precious materials of which it is built, and the elaborate finish of its ornaments, has a grave and solemn effect, infusing a peaceful serenity of mind, such as we feel when contemplating a happy death. Stern, unimaginative persons have been known to burst suddenly into tears, on entering it; and whoever can behold the Táâje without feeling a thrill that sends the moisture to his eye, has no sense of beauty in his soul.

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The Táâje 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 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. You cannot conceive their proportions being in any way changed without damage to the general effect. On one side of the Táâje is a mosque with three domes, of red sandstone, covered with mosaic of white marble. Now, on the opposite side, there is a building precisely similar, but of no use whatever, except as a balance to the mosque, lest the perfect symmetry of the whole

design should be spoiled. This building is called the jowab, or answer." Nothing can better illustrate the feeling for proportion which prevailed in those days-and proportion is Art.

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.

But the sun grows hot; it is nearly noon. We have spent three hours in and around the Táâje, and we must leave it. Nothing that is beautiful can be given up without a pang, but if a man would travel, he must endure many such partings. I must add, however, that on the opposite bank of the Jumna there is an immense foundation-terrace, whereon, it is said, Shah Jehan intended to erect a tomb for himself, of equal magnificence, but the rebellion of his sons, and his own death, prevented it. What the gods permitted to love, they forbade to vanity. A shekh, who takes care of the Táâje, told me, that had the emperor carried out his design, the tombs were to have been joined by a bridge, with a silver railing on each side. He told me that the Táâje, with its gateways, mosque, and other buildings attached, had cost £5,000,000. This, however, seems quite impossible, when we consider the cheapness of labour in those days, and I believe the real cost is estimated at £3,000,000, which does not seem exaggerated.

On the same evening, after visiting the Táâje, I left Agra for Delhi. My kind host, Mr. Warren, whose hospitality was untiring, gave me letters to his colleagues in other parts of India, and his lady furnished me with the needful provisions for the journey. I went by the garree-dawk, which was a great improvement both upon the banghy and mail-carts. There were three rival companies for the conveyance of passengers, by carriages, on the Grand Trunk road, as it is called, extending from Calcutta to Delhi, a distance of nine hundred miles. Six years since, there was no other way of travelling, except on horseback or in a palanquin. Progress in India, though slow, is perceptible. The garree resembles a cab, with the space between the back and front seats filled

up and covered with a mattrass. You provide yourself with a quilt and pillow, stow your baggage into the bottom and take your ease, as if upon your own bed. Thus you can travel, and even sleep, with a tolerable degree of comfort. There are relays of horses, about six miles apart, and if no accident should happen, the garree rolls on at the rate of seven miles an hour.

I left Agra at eight o'clock in the evening. It was a raw, misty, moonlit night, and I found an overcoat indispensable. Indeed, during the week I spent in the place, I suffered continually from cold. We had fires in the morning and evening, and I was fain to get into the sun at mid-day, though warned not to expose myself to his rays. There was no frost, but the making of ice was carried on briskly, and three thousand maunds (120,000 lbs.) were already stored in the ice-house. I sat up to take a last view of the fort and Jumma Musjeed, paid half-a-rupee toll at the bridge of boats over the Jumna, and then lay down on my mattrass, to try the effect of my new conveyance. It was really quite agreeable, and except when the horses were changed, or took a fancy to baulk and plunge, I could sleep without difficulty. About three o'clock in the morning, the driver awoke me to announce his budlee, or substitute (a hint for "backsheesh "), declaring that we were at Allyghur. This was once a strong fortress, and the scene of a battle between the English and native troops. There is a pillar erected to commemorate it, which pillar I saw in the moonlight, as we drove on towards Delhi.

The morning showed a splendid road, leading over a boundless plain, covered with fields of wheat, barley, mustard, and poppies, and dotted with groves of mango or tamarind trees. Its aspect continued unvaried for hours, except that there was once or twice a low red hill in the distance, or a native town, with whitewashed mosques and mouldy Hindoo temples near at hand. The road was crowded with native travellers, with bullock-carts, ponies, and on foot, and other garrees, conveying the “sahib log" (nobility) of the land, passed me frequently. I noticed a sort of native omnibus, drawn by slow horses, wherein natives, and they only, are conveyed at the rate of one anna (three-halfpence) per mile. This is a recent invention.

The plain gradually lost its mango groves, and assumed a bleak and sterile appearance. I crossed a river by a handsome suspension bridge, then the Eastern Jumna Canal, and in the afternoon, when still twelve miles distant from Delhi, descried its mosques on the horizon. As I approached, the great fortress-palace built by Shah Jehan (nearly as large as the fort at Agra), rose from the plain. The city, which lies to the west of it, was almost hidden by trees, which belt it around. The superb domes of the great mosque rose above them, and on either hand I could see immense tombs and other ruined edifices, scattered far and wide over the plain. I

crossed the Jumna, which is here as broad as at Agra, by a bridge of boats, passed a very old, crumbling fortress, overgrown with trees and bushes, then the Imperial Palace, occupied by His Majesty, Akbar II., and was finally set down at the dawk bungalow. The first thing I did, on arriving in the capital of the Great Mogul, was to order dinner, and by the time that business was over, it was too dark to see anything of the city. I had a letter to Mr. Place, of the Delhi Gazette, and after making many inquiries of the chokedar, who finally recognised him as being "Palace Sahib” and the " chappa-khana-walla" (printing-office fellow!), procured a guide to his residence. The next morning I shifted my quarters. to the shelter of his hospitable roof.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CAPITAL OF THE GREAT MOGUL.

DELHI is the imperial city of India, having been chosen by the Mogul conquerors as their capital, which it thenceforth remained, except during the reign of Akbar. After the death of Aurungzebe, the power of the Emperors gradually declined; the Mahrattas and Rajpoots laid waste and seized upon their territories, and finally the English, who found that the shortest way of effecting their object as peace-makers was to become conquerors, took what fragments remained of the empire. The sovereignty, however, is still acknowledged and treated with the same outward ceremonials of respect and submission, as when the Company owned nothing but a factory in Bengal, and the Mogul was lord of all India. The dominions of Akbar II., the present Emperor, the lineal descendant of the house of Tamerlane and his illustrious successors, are embraced within the walls of his palace, and comprise rather less than a square half-mile. The Government allows fourteen lacs of rupees (£140,000) annually for the maintenance of himself, his family, and the princes attached to his court-a large and hungry retinue, many of whom cannot venture outside of the walls without running the risk of being seized for his debts. They are all in debt, from the emperor to his lowest menials, and the Government ollowance is always conveyed to the palace under a strong guard, at prevent its being forcibly carried off by the creditors. This pitiful farce of royalty is all that remains of the Mogul empireonce the most powerful and enlightened sovereignty in Asia!

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The modern city of Delhi is the latest of the name, and having been founded by Shah Jehan, is still called by the natives Shahjehanabad. There were several Delhis, one of the oldest of which is the city built by Toglukh, and called Toglukhabad, the ruins of which lie about fifteen miles to the south of the present city. Another city, now called Old Delhi, built during one of the succeeding reigns, is about two miles distant. It is still surrounded by lofty walls, with circular stone bastions, and has several thousand inhabitants. But all of the country south of the Jumna, for an extent of more than ten miles in every direction, is strewn with the ruins of palaces, mosques, and tombs. Whenever the city was taken and desolated in the early wars, instead of rebuilding it, the inhabitants founded a new one in the vicinity; and afterwards, whenever the caprice of an emperor prompted him to erect a new palace, the nobles, and after them the common people, gradually shifted their residences, until the location of the city was quite changed; and thus, for centuries, Delhi continued to be a migratory capital. For the last two centuries it has been stationary, and will now probably remain so. But the ruins of the former Delhis cover a much greater space than that ocoupied by the ruins of Thebes, and had they all belonged to one city, it would have been the greatest in the world.

On the day after my arrival, Mr. Place drove me in his carriage to the Khuttub Minar, the pride and boast of Delhi, as the Táâje is of Agra. It is eleven miles distant, in a south-westerly direction. This, again, was a day to be remembered. We left at an early hour, and without entering the city, drove along its walls, past the Cashmere and Lahore Gates. It was a balmy morning, with a pure, crystalline atmosphere, such as I had not seen for weeks. The air seemed to be more dry and bracing than at Agra, for though the temperature was lower, I felt the cold much less keenly. At a short distance from the city, we came upon the ruins of a magnificent observatory. The most prominent object was a colossal gnomon, built of stone, and rising to the height of near forty feet. Around this was a circular plane, precisely parallel to that of the ecliptic, and nearly a hundred feet in diameter. Three were also two circular buildings, with a double row of narrow slits, or embrasures, around them, and the remains of stone tables in the inside, the circumferences of which were divided into degrees. These buildings were no doubt intended for observing the rising and setting of stars, measuring their distances from each other, and other similar processes. The observatory could only have been used for astronomical observations of a very simple character.

Beyond this all was ruin. The country was uneven and covered in all directions, as far as the eye could reach, with masses of stone and brick, the remains of walls and arches, and the tombs of princes, saints, and scholars, who flourished during the Mogul