"The screen between the gallery and the enclosure containing the tomb is of white marble wrought into a sort of lace; Bayard Taylor says it looks as though it had been woven in a loom, and certainly when you examine it from a distance of ten or twenty yards it resembles lace more than anything else. You never saw any carving in marble as pretty as this is, and I wonder that the idea has not been taken up and utilized by marble-workers of to-day. The screen extends all the way round the building, and admits light enough into the interior to give a fine effect to the canopy and other surroundings of the saint's tomb. The whole building is forty-six feet square, and every inch of its surface is finished with the greatest care.
THE PANCH MAHAL.
"We went through the great stables where the emperor's horses were kept, and then to the throne-hall, the council-hall, the houses of the emperor's wives, and to so many other buildings that I can hardly remember the names of them. A curious edifice is the Panch Mahal, which is five stories in height, and each story smaller than the one below it. The use of this strange building is not known.
"Then the guide took us to the Pachisi Board, which is a court-yard laid out in squares something like a chess-board, and surrounded by an elevated gallery. The emperor used to play pachisi—an Eastern game something like backgammon—on this 'board,' and the ladies of the harem acted as 'pieces,' and stepped from one square to another as the moves were made. At one corner of this yard there is a building where the ladies used to play 'hide-and-seek' or 'blindman's-buff;' at least that is the story they tell at the palace, but some of the historians say the place was nothing more nor less than a treasure-room. It must have been a wonderful spot in the days of its glory.
"There are fountains and pools in various parts of the palace-grounds, and one very pretty tank where the empress used to go to bathe. Outside of the walls of the mosque is a deep pool, and here there were half a dozen natives who offered to jump from the walls to the water, a distance of almost a hundred feet. They wanted half a rupee each, and we agreed to pay them, and so they climbed up and jumped. It was a fearful distance, and when they struck the water one after another it sounded like hitting a hammer against a board. In the first part of the descent they kept their limbs in active motion, but as they neared the water they brought their feet close together, and went in as straight as arrows.
"According to the historians, the emperor never lived long at Futtehpoor-Sikra, as Sheik Selim complained of the noise of having the whole court around him, and asked the emperor to move away. The latter then went and built Agra, on the banks of the Jumna; the whole court, with the people of the city around it, moved to the new site, and the wonderful palace was deserted, and has remained so ever since.
"We came back to Agra in the same way, and in the same time as we rode out in the morning. The excursion of the day was one that we shall long remember."