is an irregular octagon, having four long and four short sides, which are broken up by entrances and recesses. It is surmounted in the center by a very lofty dome of the most graceful pattern I ever saw. Each of the short sides is surmounted by a smaller dome. Between the central and exterior domes is a circle of most elegant kiosks.

On entering the building you find one principal apartment under the central dome having an unobstructed elevation from the pavement to the top of the dome of, say 200 feet. This apartment is a perfect circle. At each corner, outside of this, there are smaller rooms.

Now you are to remember that inside and outside this great structure, 186 feet in diameter and 243 feet high, is of the finest and whitest marble, polished to the utmost. On the inner wall of the great circular room under the dome, for about three feet above the pavement, there are flowers and foliage elegantly carved in relief. Above that the wall is covered partly by flowers inlaid with precious stones of divers colors. What an amount of delicate work! It is positively inconceivable. Other parts of the wall, inside and out, are occupied with texts of the Koran, inlaid in the white marble with black marble, elegantly cut in the Persian character, and fitting so nicely that the closest inspection scarcely shows the joint. It is affirmed that the entire Koran is here transcribed, but this is doubted.

The real sarcophagus is in a basement room in the center, but the ornamental one on the paved floor under the dome. It is richly inlaid with mosaic work in flowers of precious stones, and is surrounded

by marble screen-work of the finest kind. The ninety-nine names of God are inlaid in black marble. The Emperor lies by her side, but his sarcophagus seems an intrusion, as the place was evidently prepared for only one. He was to have had a mausoleum on the opposite side of the river, just like this, the decaying foundations of which still remain. It was to be joined to this by a marble bridge. But intestine feuds disturbed the close of his life and shortened his reign, so that his design was frustrated, and he sleeps here by the side of his beloved Taz.

There be those who say that the architecture of this building is faulty. May be so, but I cannot see it. It is one of a very few buildings I have seen that gives me a feeling of complete satisfaction. I do not understand the principles of architectural art sufficiently to account for my taste, but, to my taste, the Taj is wondrously beautiful.

I never became enthusiastic about any of these old buildings till I saw this. I think the Capitol at Washington more beautiful than any of the others, but to the Taj I surrendered. To be sure, I was pleased in a quiet way at Dehli, and especially when I saw the Kootub from the top of the minaret, eleven miles away, clear cut against the sky, the tapering shaft being the only object to break the dead circle of the horizon; and yet more when I came near it and saw it springing from its massive plinth in just proportion of diameter and height, challenging the very clouds with its summit. But the beautiful never took absolute possession of me till I came here. The echo in the dome of the Taj has been pro

nounced by traveled men the best in the world. We tried it. A sharp, short shout rebounds from fifty points at once, and touches and bounds off again, and turns somersaults, splits itself into fragments and shreds, and careers around, reverberating and answering itself as if it were intoxicated with the beauty of the place, dying out at last so reluctantly and slowly that it is impossible to say when you cease to hear it. H. made it resound with the name of our LORD, and we sung the Doxology together with a loud voice and full hearts.

Men 20,000, years 22-these factors give the sum of labor crystallized here.

At Allahabad, at sunrise, Sunday morning, we were met by the Rev. Mr. Osborne, pastor of the M. E. Church, and taken to his house. How did he know we were coming? Perhaps Dr. Waugh wrote him; I know not. What a sweet atmosphere of Christian hospitality we breathed under his roof! and what a hallowed service of the holy supper we had with his Church! He is an Indo-European by birth, an intelligent gentleman by instinct and culture, and, by grace, a devoted and efficient Christian pastor. One of the most interesting sights we have had was his daughter, twelve years old, in charge of a native Sunday-school, and managing it to admiration. I involuntarily invoked God's blessing on the child and her work.

CHAPTER XXI.

ODDS AND ENDS.

HE EAST INDIAN lives three thousand years ago. Imperfect hints of antiquity are found in the ruins of his old cities, and in a few remaining obelisks, but he, the present living Hindoo, is antiquity itself. His domicile, his dress, his social life, his manners, his religion, his implements, mechanical and agricultural, his cart and oxen, his donkey, his elephant and camel, and the uses of them, belong to the period of the very dawn of history-doubtless even to a time of which history makes no note. When an American reads of Buddha washing his own garment in the tank or river, it sounds very odd to him. He is apt to suppose that the celebrated teacher was very abject, or a great ascetic. But here where he lived the incident is not noted. Nothing is more common or commonplace. Men of all classes walk down into the water and wash their own loose and scant clothing while they take their bath. One soon becomes so accustomed to see men, almost nude, engaged in this way that he thinks nothing of it.

One of the first things I observed in Calcutta was the rude ox-carts. With the exception of the tire, every part might have been made with an ax and The hub is of great size, and the rough-hewn spokes, very large, are set in at great intervals, the

saw.

felloe, also, being very clumsy. The body or bed is of bamboo poles, rudely fastened together, tapering toward the forward end, which extends up between the oxen well on toward the yoke. Indeed, the outer poles of the frame often come together at the end, and serve as the tongue to which the yoke is fastened. You will often, therefore, see one ox on each side of the load, or at least, of the front part of it, instead of being entirely in advance of it, as with us. I have never seen the horse or mule used for draft here, that is, for heavy draft. About the cities carriages are drawn by horses, but my conviction is that this use of them was introduced by Europeans, though many wealthy natives have taken it up. Yet, even to this day, many of the latter use oxen in their carriages. There is a tradition of the Emperor Hoomayoon taking out his favorite Begum in a carriage drawn by beautiful white oxen, himself acting as teamster. Indeed, these India oxen make much better carriage-horses than our American breeds would. They are more sprightly, and, I think, better disposed, and more easily guided. They look brighter, and, when kept for the carriage, they are fed high and curried until they are sleek, and show their keeping like a horse.

There is a hole made in the cartilage between the nostrils of the ox, through which a rope is drawn and then brought over the head like the headstall of a bridle. To this a rein is attached, by means of which he is guided like a horse. This is certainly an excellent contrivance, putting the brute very fully in the power of his driver. I have seen very fine pleasure carriages of wealthy natives drawn by oxen.