25.  The anthor’s curiously meagre description of the magnificent mausoleum of Akbar is, in the original edition, supplemented by coloured plates, prepared apparently from drawings by Indian artists.  The structure is absolutely unique, being a square pyramid of five stories, the uppermost of which is built of pure white marble, while the four lower ones are of red sandstone.  All earlier descriptions of the building have been superseded by the posthumous work of E. W. Smith, a splendidly illustrated quarto, entitled, Akbar’s Tomb, Sikandarah, Agra, Allahabad Government Press, 1909, being vol. xxxv of A. S. India.  Work had been begun in the lifetime of Akbar.  The lower part of the enclosing wall of the park dates from his reign.  The whole of the mausoleum itself probably is to be assigned to the reign of Jahangir, who in 1608 disapproved of the structure which had been three or four years in course of erection, and caused the design to be altered to please himself.  The work was finished in 1613 at a cost of five millions of rupees (50 lakhs, more than half a million of pounds sterling).  The exquisitely carved cenotaph on the top story is inadequately described by Sleeman as ‘another marble slab’.  It is a single block of marble 3 1/4 feet high.  The tomb in the vault ’is perfectly plain with the exception of a few mouldings’.

26.  The ninety-nine names of God do not occur in the Koran.  They are enumerated in chapter 1 of Book X of the ‘Mishkat-ul-Masabih’ (see note 10, Chapter 5 ante):  ’Abu Hurairah said, “Verily there are ninety-nine names for God; and whoever counts them shall enter into paradise.  He is Allaho, than which there is no other; Al-Rahman-ul-Rahimo, the compassionate and merciful,” &c., &c.’ (Matthews, vol. i, p. 542.) The list is reproduced in the introduction to Palmer’s translation of the Koran, and in Bosworth-Smith, Muhammad and Muhammadanism.

27.  The court, 70 feet square, of the topmost story, is open to the sky, but the original intention was to provide a light dome, presumably similar to that built a little later to crown the mausoleum of Itimad-ud-daula.  Finch, the traveller, who was at Agra about 1611, was informed that the cenotaph was ’to be inarched over with the most curious white and speckled marble, and to be seeled all within with pure sheet gold, richly inwrought.’  The reason for omitting the dome is not recorded.

28.  The area is much larger than 40 acres, being really about 150 acres.  Each side is approximately 3 1/2 furlongs.

29.  This remarkable eulogium is quoted with approval by another enthusiastic admirer of Akbar, Count von Noer (Prince Frederick Augustus of Schleswig-Holstein), who observes that ’as Akbar was unique amongst his contemporaries, so was his place of burial among Indian tombs—­indeed, one may say with confidence, among the sepulchres of Asia.’ (The Emperor Akbar, a Contribution towards the History of India