We pass down the cypress aisle, and invade the plinth.  Hundreds of natives, both male and female, are wandering about it.  The dazzling whiteness of the promenade is in striking contrast to the color of their own bodies.  As the groups of women walk about, their toe-rings and ankle-ornaments jingle against the marble, and their particolored raiment and barbarous gewgaws look curiously out of place here.  The place seems more appropriate to vestal virgins, robed in white, than to dusky Hindoo females, arrayed in all the colors of the rainbow.  Many of these people are pilgrims who have come hundreds of miles to see the Taj, and to pay tribute to the memory of Shah Jehan, and his faithful wife the Princess Arjumund, whose mausoleum is the Taj.  Two young men we see, leading an aged female, probably their mother, down the steps to the vault, where, side by side, the remains of this royal pair repose.  The old lady is going down there to deposit a rose or two upon Arjumund’s tomb, a tender tribute paid to-day, by thousands, to her memory.

We climb the spiral stairs of one of the miuars, and sit out on the little pavilion at the top, watching the big ugly crocodiles float lazily on the surface of the Jumna at our feet.  Before departing, we enter the Taj and examine the wonderful mosaics on the cenotaphs and the encircling screen-work.  This inlaid flower-work is quite in keeping with the general magnificence of the mausoleum, many of the flowers containing not less than twenty-five different stones, assorted shades of agate, carnelian, jasper, blood-stone, lapis lazuli, and turquoise.  Ere leaving we put to test the celebrated echo; that beautiful echoing, that—­“floats and soars overhead in a long, delicious undulation, fading away so slowly that you hear it after it is silent, as you see, or seem to see, a lark you have been watching, after it is swallowed up in the blue vault of heaven.”

We leave this garden of enchantment by way of one of the mosques.  An Indian boy is licking up honey from the floor of the holy edifice with his tongue.  We look up and perceive that enough rich honey-comb to fill a bushel measure is suspended on one of the beams, and so richly laden is it that the honey steadily drips down.  The sanctity of the place, I suppose, prevents the people molesting the swarm of wild bees that have selected it for their storehouse, or from relieving them of their honey.

The Taj is said to have cost about two million pounds, even though most of the labor was performed without pay, other than rations of grain to keep the workmen from starving.  Twenty thousand men were employed upon it for twenty-two years, and for its inlaid work “gems and precious stones came in camel-loads from various countries.”

The next morning I bid farewell to Agra, more than satisfied with my visit to the Taj.  It stands unique and distinct from anything else one sees the whole world round.  Nothing one could say about it can give the satisfaction derived from a visit, and no word-painting can do it justice.