The emperor, knowing that he was about to die, asked to be taken to a marble summer-house, from which he could see the Tâj. They carried him there, and on the spot where we stood he took a last look at the beautiful building, and died. I know no more touching tale in all history, and it being well told on the spot by one of the guides, was very impressive.
This city, like most others we have seen in India, is very dirty, and we are put to many trials and discomforts, especially in eating, for we cannot get what we want, the hotels being very indifferent from an American point of view.
[CHAPTER XXII.]
DELHI.
Delhi, January 21, 1890.
YESTERDAY at noon we left Agra, passing over the river by a fine iron bridge, from which we had another view of the beautiful Tâj, which was lovely beyond expression. We had an English compartment car to ourselves, and were very comfortable. Highly cultivated fields and frequent great barren plains, with now and then an elephant, were to be seen, and once a long caravan of camels. Monkeys were in the woods, and flocks of parrots flying about, and often the beautiful peacocks were perched on the fences or wandering about the fields.
It will be remembered that the Hindoos consider all animal and bird life sacred, and never kill them, and consequently we see them everywhere.
We passed on at the rate of about twenty miles an hour, having forty-three carriages and over a thousand passengers, mostly natives, and stopped at a station at 1 P.M. for lunch. The stations in India are all large, this one being more than a thousand feet long, and there were collected in it more than a thousand pilgrims bound for the sacred Ganges with their bags and bedding.