"Don't you know what that is?" he said.
"No," I answered.
"Can't you guess?"
"No. What is it?"
"That is the famous Taj Mahal. That is the building that defies the most graphic pen in the world to do justice to its grandeur and its transcendent beauty. Bulwer, in the Lady of Lyons, has a passage which sometimes reminds me of the Taj:—
A palace lifting to eternal summer
Its marble halls from out a glassy bower
Of coolest foliage, musical with birds.
But how far short must any description of such a place fall! How far distant do you suppose we are from that building?"
"About two miles."
"Upwards of nine miles, as the crow flies! Yes; that is the Taj, the tomb of a woman, the wife of the Emperor Shah Jehan. The pure white marble of which it is built was brought from Ajmere. For upwards of twenty-five years, twenty-five thousand men were employed, day by day, on that edifice. I am afraid to say how many millions it cost. The Mahrattas carried away the huge silver gates and made them into rupees. What became of the inner gate, which was formed of a single piece of agate, no one can say. The general opinion is, that it is buried somewhere in Bhurtpore. The original idea was, to build a corresponding tomb on this side of the river for the Emperor himself, and connect the two by a bridge of white marble. A very pretty idea, was it not? Lord William Bentinck was for pulling the Taj down and selling the marble, or using it for building purposes."
"Impossible!"