As we wandered through halls and corridors of marble most richly wrought, while the sun-glare outside did but emphasise the cool shade within, or filter softly through the lace-like tracery of pierced white-marble screens, one longed to reclothe these glorious skeletons with all the pomp of their dead magnificence—­for one magic moment replace the Great Mogul upon his peacock throne, surround him with a glittering crowd of courtiers and attendants, clothe the wide marble floors upon which they stand with richest carpets from the looms of Persia and the North, and drape the tall white columns with rustling canopies of silk.

Before the great audience hall let the bare garden-court again glow with a million blooms; there let the peacocks sun themselves, their living jewels putting to shame the gems that burn back from aigrette and from sword-hilt; see and hear the cool waters sparkling once again from their long-dried founts, flashing in the white sunlight, and flowing over ducts cunningly inlaid with zigzag bands to imitate the ripple of the mountain stream.

The dead frame alone is left of all this gorgeous picture.  The imperishable marble glows white in the sunlight as it did in the days of Shah Jehan.  The great red bastions of the Fort frown over the same placid Jumna, and watch each morning the pearly dome of the Taj Mahal rise like a moon in the dawn-glow, shimmer through the parching glare of an Indian day, and at eve sink, rosy, into the purple shadows of swiftly-falling night, as they did when Shah Jehan sat “in the sunset-lighted balcony with his eyes fixed on the snow-white pile at the bend of the river, and his heart full of consolation of having wrought for her he loved, through the span of twenty years, a work that she had surely accepted at the last."[2]

We spent a long afternoon in the Fort, and drove out finally through the monstrous gateway in a little Victoria, feeling all the time that none but elephants in all their glory of barbaric caparison could pass through such a portal worthily.

The moon was full almost a week ago, unfortunately, so we determined that, failing moonlight, our first visit to the Taj should be at sunset.

The two miles’ drive along an excellent road was delightful, and the approach to the Taj has been laid out with much skill as a beautiful bit of landscape garden.  This care is due to Lord Curzon, who has taken Agra and its monuments into his especial keeping.

A very small golf-course has been laid out, and the familiar form of the enthusiast could be seen, blind to everything but the flight of time and his Haskell, hurrying round to save the last of the daylight.

Beneath a tree was laid out a tea equipage, and a few ladies indolently putting showed that, after all, the game was not taken too seriously.

I have no intention of trying to describe the Taj Mahal.  The attempt has already been made a thousand times.  I may merely remark that the detestable Indian miniatures, and little ivory or marble models that are, alas! so common, are incapable of giving an idea, otherwise than misleading, of this wonderful building, which is not—­as they would vainly show it—­glaring, staring, and hard, nor does its formality seem other than just what it should be.