superstructure is covered
without and within are of rock-crystal, chalcedony, turquoise,
lapis-lazuli, agate, carnaline, garnet, oynx, sapphire, coral, Pannah
diamonds, jasper, and conglomerates, brought respectively from
Malwa, Asia Minor, Thibet, Ceylon, Temen, Broach, Bundelcund, Persia,
Colombo, Arabia, Pannah, the Panjab, and Jessalmir; that there are,
besides the mausoleum, two exquisite mosques occupying angles of the
enclosure, the one built because it is the Moslem custom to have
a house of prayer near the tomb, the other because the architect's
passion for symmetry demanded another to answer to the first, whence
it is called _Jawab_ ("the answer"); that out of a great convention of
all the architects of the East one Isa (Jesus) Mohammed was chosen to
build this monument, and that its erection employed twenty thousand
men from 1630 to 1647, at a total cost of twelve millions of dollars;
and, finally, that the remains of the beautiful queen variously known
as Mumtazi Mahal, Mumtazi Zemani and Taj Bibi, as well as those of her
royal husband, Shah Jehan, who built this tomb to her memory, repose
here.

[Illustration: MUSSULMAN SCHOOL AT ALLAHABAD.]

But this is not description. The only way to get an idea of the Taj
Mahal is--to go and see it.

"But it is ten thousand miles!" you say.

"But it is the Taj Mahal," I reply with calmness. And no one who has
seen the Taj will regard this answer as aught but conclusive.

But we had to leave it finally--it and Agra--and after a railway
journey of some twelve hours, as we were nearing Allahabad my
companion began, in accordance with his custom, to give me a little
preliminary view of the peculiarities of the town.

"We are now approaching," he said, "a city which distinguishes itself
from those which you have seen by the fact that besides a very rich
past it has also a very bright future. It is situated at the southern
point of the Lower Doab, whose fertile and richly-cultivated plains
you have been looking at to-day. These plains, with their wealth,
converge to a point at Allahabad, narrowing with the approach of the
two rivers,--the Ganges and the Jumna--that enclose them. The Doab,
in fact, derives its name from _do_, "two," and _ab_, "rivers." But
Allahabad, besides being situated at the junction of the two great
water-ways of India--for here the Jumna unites with the Ganges--is
also equally distant from the great extremes of Bombay, Calcutta,
and Lahore, and