ah Jehan's
"other city," for it was only after building the lovely monument to
his queen--the Taj Mahal--which has made Agra famous all over
the world, that he removed to Delhi, or that part of it known as
Shahjehanabad. Agra, in fact, first attained its grandeur under Akbar,
and is still known among the natives as Akbarabad.

"But I am all for Shah Jehan," I said as, after wandering about the
great citadel and palace at the south of the city, we came out on the
bank of the Jumna and started along the road which runs by the river
to the Taj Mahal. "A prince in whose reign and under whose direct
superintendence was fostered the style of architecture which produced
that little Mouti Masjid (Pearl Mosque) which we saw a moment ago--not
to speak of the Jammah Masjid of Delhi which we saw there, or of the
Taj which we are now going to see--must have been a spacious-souled
man, with frank and pure elevations of temper within him, like that
exquisite white marble superstructure of the Mouti Masjid which rises
from a terrace of rose, as if the glow of crude passion had thus
lifted itself into the pure white of tried virtue."

A walk of a mile--during which my companion reviewed the uglinesses
as well as the beauties of the great Mogol reign with a wise and
impartial calmness that amounted to an affectionate rebuke of my
inconsiderate effusiveness--brought us to the main gate of the long
red stone enclosure about the Taj. This is itself a work of art--in
red stone banded with white marble, surmounted by kiosques, and
ornamented with mosaics in onyx and agate. But I stayed not to look
at these, nor at the long sweep of the enclosure, crenellated and
pavilioned. Hastening through the gate, and moving down a noble alley
paved with freestone, surrounded on both sides with trees, rare plants
and flowers, and having a basin running down its length studded with
water-jets, I quickly found myself in front of that bewilderment of
incrustations upon white marble which constitutes the visitor's first
impression of this loveliest of Love's memorials.

I will not describe the Taj. This is not self-denial: the Taj cannot
_be_ described. One can, it is true, inform one's friends that the red
stone platform upon which the white marble mausoleum stands runs some
nine hundred and sixty feet east and west by three hundred and twenty
north and south; that the dome is two hundred and seventy feet high;
that the incrustations with which the whole