The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-01-07

bles You find one spray Of vine beset with
eighty, and another with one hundred
i stones Twenty thousand men wen TWEEN
I ~ years DO building 10. and Enough the
I labor was slave labor. ard not paid for
I the building cost what would be- about
Sfi.p0e9 Of our American money. Some
+ of the jewels have h-en picked out OF the
I wall by inconoclasts or cOn4ucrers. and
substitute OF less value have taken their
places, but The vines. the traeeries. The
arabesques. the spandrels. THE eutahla-
lures are SO wondrous that you feel liEe
dating the rest OF your life from tho day
you frst saw them. In letters OF black
marble the whole Of the Koran is spelled
out ln and on this august pile. The kluZ
sleeps in the tomb beside the queen. all
though he intended 70 build "A palace as
black as this was white on the opposite
side OF the river for himself 10 sleep in.
1 Indeed, the foundation of such q uccro-
polls Of black marble Is stilT there. and
from the white TO the black temple Of the
dead a bridge was to cross. bur the son
uethroned him and imprisoned him. and f.
is wonderful that the king had any place
az all IN which 10 be buried Instead OF
windows to let In the light upon the two
tombs, there Is "A trellis-worS Of marble.
marble cut 50 delicately thin that the sun
shines through II as easily as through
glass Look the world over and find so
much translucency. cauOpies. traceries.
lace-worS. embroideries Of stone.
We had heard Of the wonderful reson-
ance OF this Tai, and so 7 tried il. ] sup
pose there are more sleeping echoes Ga
that building waiting 10 be awakened by
the human voice than in any building
ever constructed. / uttered one word and
there seemed descending invisible choirs
in full chant, and there was p revcrbera-
ton that kept on Song after one would
have expected IL to cease When line OF
a hymn was sung there were replying.
rolling, rising, falling. Interviewing sounds
that seemed modulated by beings seraphic.
There We're aerial sopranos and bassos.
soft, high, deep. tremulous. emotional.
comminglng. 1t was like an antiphonal of
heaven. But there are four or five Tai
Mahals. II has one appearance at sun
rise. another at noon. another at sunset.
and another by moonlight. Indeed. the
silver trowel Of the moon, and the golden
trowel Of the sunlight and the leaden
trowel of the storm build and rebuild the
glory, so that il never seems twice alike.
II has all moods. all compilations, an
grandeurs. From the top of the Tai which
is 25N feet high springs a splre thirty feet
higher and that Is enamelled gold What
an anthem I'm ETERNAL rhythm, lyrics
and elegies in marble. Sculptured hosana,
Masonry as Of supernatural hands,
Mighty doXology In stone. / shall see
nothing to equal IL till I see the Great
White Throne, ana on IL Him from whose
face the earth and heavens flee away.
The Tai is the pride of India. and espec-
tally of Mohammedanism. An English Of
ncer at the fortress told us that when
during the general mutiny in 1851 the Mo-
hammedans proposed instruction at
Agra, the English government aimed the
guns of the fort at the Tai and said. you
make insuIrection, and that same day We
will blow your Tai to atoms:" and that
threat ended the disposition for mutlny at
Agra.
But I thought while looking at that
palace for the dead, all this constructed
10 cover a handful Of dust but even
that handful has probably gone from the
mosoleum. How much better IT would
have been to eXpend sixty millions of dol
lars, which the Tai ATahal cost, for the
living What asylums It might have built
for the sick what houses for the home
less! What Improvement our century
has made upon other centuries in lift
ing in honor of the departed memorial
churches, memorial hospitals, memorial
reading rooms memorial observatorfes
by all possible means let us keen the
memory of departed loved ones fresh i'm
mind, and let there be an appropriate
mead stone or monument in the Gene
terry, but there Is a dividing lire he
tween reasonable commemoration and
wicked extravaganza. The TAI MahaI
has its uses as an architectural achieV-
ment eclipsing all other architecture
but as a memorial of a departed wife
and mother 1t expresses no more than the
plainest slab in many a country grave
yard. The best monument we can any
of us have built for us when we are
gone is in the memory of those whose
sorrows we have alleviated in the wounds
we have healed, in the kindness we have
DONE in the ignorance we have enlight-
ened, in the recreant We have reclaimed
in the souls we have saved! Such a mon
ument is built out of material more last
ing than marble or bronze and will stand
amid the eternal splendors long after
the Tai Mahal of India shall have gone
down in the ruins of a world of which il
was the costlest adornment. But |
promised to show you not only a tomb
of India, but a unique heather temple,
and 1t is a temple underground.
With miners candle we had seen some
thing of the underside of Australia, as
at Gimpie; and with guides torch we
had seen at different times something of
the underside of America, as in Mammoth
Cave, but we are now to enter one of
the sacred cellars of India, commonly
called the Elephanta Caves We had ii
all to ourselves, the steam yacht that was
to take us about fifteen miles over the
harbor of Bombay, and between en-
chanted islands and along shores whose
curves and gulches and pictured rocks
gradually prepared the mind for appre-
in India. The morning had been fun of
thunder and lightning and deluge, but
the atmospheric agitatons had ceased.
and the cloudy ruins of the storm Were
piled up in the heavens, huge enough
and darkly purple enough to make the
skies as grandly picturesque as the
earthly scenery amid which we moved.
After an hours cutting through the wa
tiers we came to the long pier reaching
from the island called Elephanta. 1t is
an island small of girth, but Geo feet high.
1t declines into the marshes of man
grove. But the whole island is one tan
gle of foliage and verdure; convulvulus
creeping the ground; MOSES climbing the
rocks; vines sleeVing the long arms of
the trees; red flowers here and there in
the woods, like incendiarys torch trying
to set the groves on fire; cactus and
acacia wing as to which can most charm
the beholder; tropical bird meeting parti-
colored butterfly in jungles planted the
same summer the world was born We
stepped out of the boat amid enough ma
tives to afford all the help we needed
for landing and guidance. You can be
carried by coolies in an easy chair. or
you can walk. if you are blessed with
two stout limbs. which the psalmist ev-