River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1879-07-31
A Description of the Tai--The Most
Splendid Tomb on earth.

4
ing as house of recreation, receives his
| friends. gives entertainments. When he
dies he is buried within the walls, and
from that hour the building is abandoned
t is ever afterward a tomb, given alone.
to the dead There is something Egyp-
| tian in this idea OF house of feasting be-
coming a tomb of a great prince, as he
walks amid crowds of retainers and friends
| knowing that til. alls that resound with
laughter will look down on his dust. This
will account for so many of the stipend
Gus tombs that you find in Upper India.
| Happily 1t does not account tor the Tai.
If the Tai had been ii Tartar idea-a house
Of mermment to the builder and of sorrow
tfterward--it sould have lost something
of the poetry which adds to its beauty.
The Tai is the expression of the grief of
| the Emperor Shah Jehan for his wife,
who was known in her day as Muntaz-I-
Mabab, or the Exalted One Of the Palace.
She was herself of royal blood,
with Persian ancestry intermingled.
| She was married in 1915 TO
Shah Jehan, then heir to the throne, and
| having borne him seven children, died in
| 1929, in giving birth to the eighth child
| Her life, therefore, was in the highest
sense consecratcd, for she gave it up in
the fulfillment of II supreme and holy
duty, in itself conservation Of woman
lood. The husband brought body of
his wife ana mother to these gardens and
entombed it until the monument of his
grief should he done. 1t was seventeen
wears before the work was finished. The
cost is unknown, the best authorities
rating il at more than $3,000,000. The
millions of dollars in the time of Shah
Jehan, with labor for the asking, would
be worth as much as twenty million in
our day. For seventeen years 10000
men worked ON the Tai, and their wages
was daily portion of corn.
The effect of the Tai as seen from the
| gate, looking down the avenue of trees,
| S grand. The dome and towers seem to
rest in the air, and it would not surprise
YOU if they became clouds and vanished
INTO rain The gardens are the peflec-
| ton Of horticulture, and you see here
as in no part of India that | have
visited, the eaIth and beauty Of nature
! in IIlndostan. The landscape seems to
| he flushed witt roses. with all vari-
etIes OF the rose, and that most sun
| ny and queenly of flowers seems to
strew your path and bid you welcome
as you sauntcr along the avenue and
up the ascending slope that leads to the
| shrine of husbands love and a mother S
conservation. There is row OF fountains
which throw out spray and cool the air.
md hen YOU pass the trees and come to
| the door Of the building its greatness and
| is beauty. Mr.. Keene took us to various
| parts of the garden, that we might see it
| from different points of view. | could
see no vau5 in one view beyond the 9th
r. And when our friend, in the spirit of
courteous kindness pointed out the de-
| fects OF the building-that it was too
much this. or would have been perfect If
| it had been a little less of something else
there was Just the least disposition to
resent criticism and to echo the opinion
of Mr. BOrie, who, as he stood looking at
the exquisite towers ana solemn marble
| walls, said at was worth coming to In.
dia to see the Tai" ! value that criticism
because it is that ofa practical business
man, concerned y 18th affairs, and not dis
posed to see a poetic side to any subject.
What he saw in the Tai was the idea that
its founder meant to convey-the idea OF
solemn, overpowering and unapproacha-
| bic beauty.
As YOU enter YOU see vast dome,
every inch of which is enriched with IN
scriptIons in Arabic, verses from the
Koran, engraved marble, mosaics, dec
orat:ons in agate and jasper. In the cen
ter are two small tombs of white marble,
modestlv carved, These cover the resting
place of the Emperor and his wife, whose
bodies are in the vault underneath. n
other avs the Turkish priests read the
Koran from the gallery, and you can
imagine ow solemn mu t nave been the
| effect OF the ords chanted In a priestly
cadence bv the echo that answers and
again answers the charung OF some tune
by one Of the party The more closely
YOU examined the Tai the mere you are
perpexcd to decide whether its beauty Is
TO be found in the general effect OF the
design as seen from afar, or the minute
and finished uecorati0ns hich cover every
wall. The gem raj idea of the building
IS never lost. There is nothing trivial
about the Tai, no grotesquc Gothic mold
ing or Towering C0rinthian columns-al
is cold and white and chaste and pure
You may form an idea OF the size OF the
Tai from the figures of the measurement
of the royal engineers. From the base
70 the top OF the center dome is 139 Il
feet to the summit OF the pinnacle, 243 Is
feet 1t stands on the ban of the River
Jumna, and it is said that Shah Jehar
intended to build counterpart in black
marble in which his own ashes coulC
&c, paYa ny Shal
Jehan-unrratefu children. strife, de-
position-and when he died, his son fel
that the Tai was large enough for bott
father and mother. One is almost GLAD
,, that the black marble idea never germin
ated. The Tai, by itself alone, is unap
proaehable 4 duplicate would have de
tracted from its peerless beauty.
We remained gardens until tn
sun went down, and we had to hurry Il
our carriages not to be caught in tn
s Understanding night. The gardene
came to Mrs. Grant with an offering q
; roses. Some of us, on our return from
; Jevpore, took advantage of the new moor
r to make another visit. We had been tolc
that the moonlight gave new glory even
! to the Tai. 1t was the night before WI
left Agra, and We could not resist th'
: temptation, even at the risk OF keeping
some friends waiting who had asked u:
. to dinner, of moonlight view. 1t was {
| new moon. which made cur view imper
, feet But such view as was given adj
ded to the beauty of the TAI. The colo
lines of the marble were stftened by thu
shimmering silver light. The minaret
seemed To have a ne heig and th'
dome had solemnity as became the ca
, nopv of the mother and queen. w,
I strolIed back, now and then turning TO
I another last view of the wonderful tolnb
t The birds wee singing, the air wa
heavy with the odors of the rose garden
. and the stiffness. the twilight stiffness
: all added to the beauty or tle mausoleun
9 and combined to make the memory O
:, our visit the NEST striking among th
many wondrous things se have seen II
; Hlndostan.
/ Leghorn and chip shade hats have
e welt of velvet under the brlm, or tn
s brim lined with shirring u satin, sil