can buy paper
weights of that sort, and table tops which represent months of
labor and the most exact workmanship. They are very expensive
because of the skill and the time required to execute them. Well,
upon the walls of the tomb of the Princess Arjamand are about
two acres of surface covered with such mosaics as fine and as
perfect as if each setting were a jewel intended for a queen to
wear--turquoise, coral, garnet, carnelian, jasper, malachite,
agate, lapis lazuli, onyx, nacre, bloodstone, tourmaline, sardonyx
and a dozen other precious stones of different colors. The guide
book says that twenty-eight different varieties of stone, many of
them unknown to modern times, are inlaid in the walls of marble.

The most beautiful of these embellishments are inscriptions,
chiefly passages from the Koran and tributes of praise to "The
Exalted One of the Palace" who lies buried there, worked out
in Arabic and Persian characters, which are the most artistic
of any language, and lend themselves gracefully to decorative
purposes. The ninety-nine names of God, which pious Mussulmans
love to inscribe, appear in several places. Over the archway
of the entrance is an inscription in Persian characters which
reads like a paraphrase of the beatitudes:

"Only the Pure in Heart can Enter the Garden of God."

This arch was once inclosed by silver doors, which were carried
off by the Persians when they invaded India and sacked the palaces
of Agra in 1739.

There is no wood or metal in this building; not a nail or a screw
or a bolt of any sort. It is entirely of marble, mortised and
fastened with cement.

The acoustic properties of the rotunda are remarkable and a sound
uttered by a human voice will creep around its curves repeating
and repeating itself like the vibrations of the gongs of Burmese
temples, until it is lost in a whisper at the apex of the dome.
I should like to hear a violin there or a hymn softly sung by
some great artist.

In the center of the rotunda Shah Jehan and his beloved wife
are supposed to lie side by side in marble caskets, inlaid with
rich gems and embellished by infinite skill with lacelike tracery.
But their bodies are actually buried in the basement, and, the
guides assert, in coffins of solid gold. She for whom this tomb
was built occupies the center. Her lord and lover, because he
was a man and an emperor, was entitled to a larger sarcophagus,
a span loftier and a span longer. Both of the cenotap