The Progress., 1895-01-12


first figure, or mason's plumb llne
measured its first wall, or architects
compass swept It's first circle.
The TAI has sixteen great arched
windows. four at each corner. Also
at each of the four eosAass of the Ta'
s.and, minaret l37 feet high. Also
, = each si1e @: .his building is splcn'
did mosque of red ,c.nIstone. Ewo
hundred and fifty years has the lal
| stood. and vet not II walt is cracked.
| nor a mosaic lOOscncd nor an arch
sagped, nor panel dulled. The
storms of 80 winters have not marred,
nor the heats of $50 summers dlslntre-
grated marble. There is no story of
aoc written by MOSES on its white
surface. Montaz, the queen. was
| beautiful. and Shah JChan, the KING,
here proposed to let all the centuries
Of time know it. She was married at
90 years of age and died at %. Her
life ended as another life began; as the
rose bloomcd the rose bush persisted.
To ad0rn this dCrmitory OF the dead,
ut the command of the king, Bagdad
J sent to this building its corn'Ian,
and Ceylon its lapis lazuli, and Pun
lab its jasper and Persia its amethyst,
and Thibct it's turquoise. and Lanka
it's sapphire, and Yemen its agate ana
Punah its diamonds; and blood-stoncs,
and sardonyx, and chalccdony ana
moss agatcs are as common as though
they were pebbles. Ion find one spray
of vine beset with eighty and another
with one hundred stones. twenty
thousand men were twenty years IN
building it, and although the labor
was slave labor, and not paid TOR, the
building cost what would be about
$50, 600, 900 of our American money.
Some of the jewels have been picked
ont of the wall by icOnoclasts or con-
ouerors, and substitutes Of less value
have taken their places; but the
vines. the traceries, thcl barab-
esques, the spandrels, the entablatures
arc so wondrous that you feel like dat
in he rest of your life from the day you
fiji so saw them. In letters of black mar
bic the whole of the Koran is spelled
out in and on this august pile. The
king sleeps in the tomb beside the
queen, although he intended to build
q palace as black as this was white on
the opposite side of the river for him
self to sleep in. Indeed, the tounda'
ton of such a metropolis Of black mar
ble is stin there, and from the white
to the black temple Of the dead
bridge was to cross; but the son de-
throned him and imprisoned him, and
it is wonderful that the king had any
place at all in which to be buried. In
stead of windows to let in the light
!; upon the two tombs, there is trelllt
work of marble, marble cut so deli
cately thin that the sun shines through
/ it as easily as through glass. Look the
world over and find SO much translu
, cency; canopies, traceries, lace wcrk
embroideries of stone.
In these Elephanta Caves everything
| ! is on a Samsonian and Titanian scale.
With chisels that were dropped from
!, nerveless hands at least eight cen
turies ago, the forms of the gocss Brah
, ma, and Vishnu, and silva We're cut
} into the everlasting rock. silva is here
, represented by figure sixteen feet
} nine inches high one half man and one
, half woman Run line from the
f forehead straight to the floor of the
, rock, and you divide this idol into mas
$ culine and feminine. Admired as this
l idol is by many, it was to me abou'
c the worst thing that was ever cut into
: porphyry, perhaps because there il
hardly anything on earth so objection
able as being half man and half wo
9 man. Do be one or the other, my
| kearer. Man is admirable, and woman
= is admira BILE. but either in flesh or tral
, rock compromise of the two is hide
t ous Save us from effeminate men ant
t masculine women.
Il Yonder is the King Ravana worship
d ping. Yonder is the sculptured repre-
n sentation of the marriage of SILVA ant
l., Karhati. Yonder is DakSha, the sol
Of Brahma born from the thumb o
G his right hand. He had sixty daugh
h ters. Seventeen of those daughter
G were married to Kasyapa and becam
d mothers of the human race. Yonde
g is a god with three heads. The cente
e god has crown wound with necklace
t. of skulls. The right hand god is in
d paroxysm of rage, with forehead o
= snakes, and in his hand lisa cobra. TIL
n left hand god has pleasure in all it
q features and the hand has flower
d But there are gods and goddesses il
% all directions The chief temple O
n this rock SIS 13o feet square an
e has twenty-six pillars rising t
t. the roof. After the conqueror
Il of other lands, and the toul
y lists from all lands have Clipped, an
le defaced, and blasted, and ca,
10 ried away curios and memento
If for museums and homes, there ar
N enough entrancements left to detail
N one, unless he is cautious, until he
N down with some of the malarias whic
ID encompass this land, or get bitten wit
Is some of it's snakes. Yes, l felt til
oh ;ll,, 4 o -, pnoec ~ $l,o ,,l,oo .,J L.