Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XXV. Agriculture, Manufacture and Architecture—Wheat Growing—The Farm Laborer—His Condition, Implements, etc. The Taj-Mahal—Jugglers—Snake Charmers—From My Journal
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253 Story of an Emigtiant. 272
marble dome measuring seventy feet in diameter, and
rising to a height of one hundred and twenty feet. It is
covered by a gilt vault in the shape of a half-moon about two
hundred and sixty feet above the floor. All this is of the
finest Jaypoor marble, carefully polished, and still retaining
its pure color.
"Notwithstanding the colossal size of Taj-Mahal, every
part of it, from the foundation to the dome, is adorned with
artistically executed designs, and the whole is as carefully
wrought as the finest ebony ornament. Thus the entire Koran
is inscribed on it. Even to-day the burial vault of the
beautiful queen is filled with the fragrance of roses, jasmines and
sandal-wood. The graves of the empress and emperor
constitute sarcophagi of the purest marble, covercd with elegant
inlays of agate, carnelians, lapis lazuli and other precious
stones, and surrounded by a six-foot-high gallery in the oj en
net-work of which lilies, roses and other flowers of gen s
are inlaid. The dome in Taj-Mahal produces an echo which
is more pleasant, pure and lasting than any other. A
single musical sound produced by the human voice seems to
flow or soar up there like a prolonged, pleasant modulation,
which dies awav so slowly that one seems to hear it after it is
silent, just as one seems to see a lark after following it with
the eyes after it has disappeared. Twenty thousand
workmen were engaged for twenty-two years in erecting this
mausoleum."
These recollections from India would be incomplete if I
should omit to describe some of the wonderful tricks which
I saw performed by Hindoo jugglers. As I was sitting one
day in an open place before the hotel in Benares, together
with some English army officers, an ordinaly looking
Hindoo of the lower classes, accompanicd by a small bov,
appeared before us, and asked permission to si ow the mango
tne This being granted, the bov scraped up some earth
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