Milford chronicle., 1895-01-11
The Tai AIahal.

The building Is about six miles from
Agra, and as we rode out in the early
dawn we heard nothing but the hoofs and
wheels that pulled and turned us along
the road at every yard of which our ex
pectation rose until we had some thought
that we might be disappointed at tho first
glimpse, as some say they were disappoint-
ed. But how can any one be disappointed
with the Tai is almost as great wonder
to me as the Tai itself There are some
people always disappointed, and who
knows but that having entered heaven
they may critioise the architecture Of the
temple and the cut of the white robes and
say that the river of life is not quite up to
their expectations, and that the white
horses on which the conquerors ride seem
a little springhalt or spawned?
My son said, There it is said,
"Where?' For that which he saw to be
the building seemed to me to be more like
the morning cloud blushing under the
stare of the rising sun. 1t seemed not so
much built up from earth as let down from
heaven Fortunately you stop at an elab-
GRATED gateway of red sandstone one
eighth of a mile from the Tai, an entrance
so high, so arched, so graceful so four
dOmed so painted and chiseled and
sorolled that you come very gradually
upon the Tai, which structure is enough
to intoxioate the eye and stun the imagi |
nation and entrance the soul We go up
the winding stairs of this majestic en-
trance of the gateway and buy a few pic |
lures and examine few ourios, and from |
it look off upon the Tai and descend to |
the pavement of the garden that raptures I
everything between the gateway and the .
ecstasy of marble and precious stones /
You pass long a deep stream of water in
which all manner of brilliant fins swirl
and float. There are "a fountains that
spout and bend and arch themselves to fall
in showers of pearl in basins of snowy
whiteness. Beds of all imaginable fora
greet the nostril before they do the eye
and seem to roll in waves of color as you
advance toward the vision you are soon to
have of what human genius did when it
did its best. Moon flowers lilacs, mari
colds, tulips and almost everywhere the
lotus; thickets Of bewildering bloom on
either side trees from many lands bend
their aboresoence over your head, or seem
with oonyoluted branches to reach out
their arms toward you in welcome On
and on you go amid tamarind and cypress
and poplar and oleander and yew and sy-
camore and banyan and palm and trees Of
such novel branch and leaf and girth you
cease to ask their name or nativity.
As you approach the door Of the Tai
one experiences a strange sensation of awe
and tenderness and humility and worship
The building is only grave, but what a
gravel Built for queen, who, according
to some was very good, and according TO
others was very bad. choose to think she
was very good. At any rate, it makes me
feel better to think that this commemora.
tive pile was set up for the immortaliza- I
tion of virtue rather than vice The Tai
Is a mountain of white marble, but never
such walls faced each other with exquis- I
Iteness; never such a tomb was cut from !
block of alabaster; never such a oongrega-
ton of precious stones frightened and
gloomed and blazed and ohastened and /
ylorifled building since soulptor's ohisel
lut its first curve, or painters pencil
traced its first figure or mason's plumb [
Inc measured its first WALL or architects /
compass swept its first circle. J