athway they dump a barrel or more of
much needed moisture into a ditch that feeds the thirsty ground.
The roadway is well kept. It was made several centuries ago, and
was put in perfect order in 1902 on account of the Imperial durbar
at Delhi, which brought thousands of critical strangers to see the
Taj Mahal, which really is the greatest sight in India, and is
more famous than any other building, except perhaps Westminster
Abbey and St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome. The road leads up to a
superb gateway of red sandstone inlaid with inscriptions from
the Koran in white marble, and surmounted by twenty-six small
marble domes, Moorish kiosks, arches and pinnacles. This gateway
is considered one of the finest architectural monuments in all
India. Bayard Taylor pronounced it equal to the Taj itself.
You pass under a noble arch one hundred and forty feet high and
one hundred and ten feet wide, which is guarded by a group of
Moslem priests and a squad of native soldiers who protect the
property from vandals. Having passed this gateway you find yourself
at the top of a flight of wide steps overlooking a great garden,
which was originally laid out by the Mogul Shah Jehan and by Lord
Curzon's orders was restored last year as nearly as possible
to its original condition and appearance. About fifty acres are
inclosed by a high wall of a design appropriate to its purpose.
There are groups of cypress equal in size and beauty to any in
India; groves of orange and lemon trees, palms and pomegranates,
flowering plants and shrubs, through which winding walks of gravel
have been laid. From the steps of the gateway to the tomb is
a vista about a hundred feet wide paved with white and black
marble with tessellated designs, inclosed with walls of cypress
boughs. In the center are a series of tanks, or marble basins,
fed from fountains, and goldfish swim about in the limpid water.
This vista, of course, was intended to make the first view as
impressive as possible, and it is safe to say that there is no
other equal to it. At the other end of the marble-paved tunnel
of trees, against a cloudless sky, rises the most symmetrical,
the most perfect, perhaps the only faultless human structure in
existence. At first one is inclined to be a little bewildered,
a little dazed, as if the senses were paralyzed, and could not
adjust themselves to this "poem in marble," or "vision in marble,"
or "dream in marble," as poets and artists have rhapsodized o
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