and strength of the past ages is now seen in
their morgues, mausoleums and palaces, many of them wrecks of their
former beauty, but patience and long years of toil are evident in their
crumbling walls.

The Punjab country lies between the five great branches of the Indus
River. The men here are magnificent specimens of physical development.
The Sikh soldiers are the handsomest known. We see them acting as
policemen at Hongkong, and we stop to admire their erect carriage and
military tread. There is one defect, however, in the anatomy of the men
of India; they have no calves to their legs. The Sikh is less servile
than any other tribe, hard fighters, but attain to more or less civility
in their contact with Europeans.

Our next stopping place to Benares was Aigra, so full of interest;
namely, the Fort; the Pearl Mosque, the imperial palace, built by Abkur,
the grandfather of Shah Jehan; the palace of wonders; its walls inlaid
with agates, topaz, tagula and other more precious stones. The rooms set
apart for the harem women are exquisitely beautiful. The oriental
imagination must have lost itself in the construction and adornment of
this palace. The apartments built for his favorite wife, with a boudoir
and marble baths--the water furnished for the latter was delicately
perfumed--and walls, mirrored with small pieces of glass, looked like
the firmament in its brightness, but it remained for Shah Jehan to
astonish the world with the mausoleum built for his (not the most
correct) wife. The Tag Mahal, the tomb of his sultana, Montag Mahal, is
the most beautiful creation in marble in existence. We are told she was
beautiful; her devotion to Shah Jehan was proverbial, and his for her
idolatrous. Her dying request was that her husband should never take for
himself another wife, and in her memory should build a tomb that could
have no rival, and one that all the world would admire. "Tag" is a pet
name of endearment; "Mahal" means great or beautiful; "Montag Mahal,"
the chosen of the palace. In the words of another I will describe the
Tag Mahal, as I know no more fitting words to use. "Passing through a
majestic Saracenic arch, eighty feet in height, supported by two
abutments of sand stone, on the panels of which are carved passages from
the Koran, is a long vista of cypress trees, shading a marble paved
canal, on either side of which are beds of flowers and crystal
fountains. At the end of this magic avenue stands the "Tag" on