Later.

This afternoon, when we were having tea in the garden and enjoying Peliti’s chocolate-cake, a great outcry arose from the house, and we saw the servants running and looking up to the verandah.  Mr. Townley called out to know what was the matter, and received such a confused jumble of Hindustani in reply that he went to investigate.  He came back shrugging his shoulders.  “It’s some nonsense about a ‘spirit,’ They say it’s been appearing suddenly, then disappearing for some time.  Now the chokra swears he saw it go up the verandah into a bedroom.  To satisfy them, I have sent for my gun, and I’ll wait below while they drive the ‘spirit’ down.”

“It’s our midnight visitor,” G. and I cried together.

We waited, breathless.  The servants rushed on to the verandah with sticks—­a dark streak slid down the verandah pillar—­Mr. Townley fired.  It wasn’t a tiger, it was a civet cat—­a thing rather like a fox, with a long pointed nose and an uncommonly nasty smell.

“Think,” said G., as we looked at it lying stretched out stiff,—­“think of having that thing under our bed!  A mouse indeed!”

We didn’t say “I told you so,” but we looked it.

Boggley comes back to-morrow, and I am going with him to the Grand
Hotel, so that we shall be together for the last little while.

Agra, April 11.

... from a chapter in the Arabian Nights; from the middle of the most gorgeous fairy-tale the mind of man could invent, I write to you to-night.

Often I have heard of the Taj Mahal, read of its beauty, dreamed of its magic, but never in my dreams did I imagine anything so exquisite, so perfect.

Boggley thought I should not leave India without seeing this “miracle of miracles—­the final wonder of the world,” so we left Calcutta on Monday night by the Punjab mail and came to Agra, and we have done it all in proper order.  Yesterday, in the morning, we motored to the deserted city, the capital of Akbar, the greatest of the Mogul emperors, about twenty miles off.  It has battlemented walls and great gates like a fairy-tale city.  The bazaar part of it is mostly in ruins, but the royal part is perfectly preserved and could be lived in comfortably now.  There is Akbar’s Council Chamber, the houses of his wives, the courtyard where they played living chess, the stables, waterworks, the palaces of his chief ministers, the mosque and cloisters, the Gate of Victory.  The carving in marble and red sandstone is wonderful.  Akbar must have been a broad-minded man, for we found paintings of the Annunciation side by side with pictures of the Hindu god Ganesh.  It is intensely interesting to see the place just as it was hundreds of years ago.  In the great Mosque Quadrangle there is a marble mausoleum, delicately carved, a priceless piece of work in mother-of-pearl, erected to Akbar’s high priest; and our guide was his lineal descendant, glad to get five rupees for his trouble!