Tavernier, describes _two_ peacocks standing behind it with their
tails expanded, which were studded with jewels. Between the peacocks stood
a parrot, life size, cut out of a single emerald!

_Friday, October_ 20.--Yesterday at 6 A.M. we spurned the dust of Delhi,
hot and blinding, from our feet and clambered into the train, which
whirled us across the sun-baked plain to Agra.

There has been a woeful shortage of rain in the Punjab and Rajputana, and
a famine seems imminent--not a great and universal famine, as, the monsoon
having been irregular, only some districts have suffered to a serious
extent, and they can be supplied from elsewhere, whereas in the great
famine of 1901 the drought parched the whole land, and no help could be
given by one State to another, all lying equally under the sun's curse.
Not a great famine, perhaps; yet, to one accustomed to the genial
juiciness of the West, the miles and miles of waterless hot plains,
stretching away to where the horizon flickered in the glare, the brown and
parched vegetation, the lean and hungry-looking cattle, tended by equally
lean and famished herds, caused the monotonous view from the carriage
windows to be strangely depressing.

This is the very battle-ground of Nature and the British Raj. We have
given peace and, to a certain extent, prosperity to the teeming millions
of India, and they have increased and multiplied until the land is
overburthened, and Nature, with relentless will, bids Famine and
Pestilence lay waste the cities and the plains. Then Science, with
irrigation works and improved hygiene, strives hard to gain a victory, but
still the struggle rages doubtfully.

Agra we liked as much as we disliked Delhi. To begin with creature
comforts (and the well-being of the body produces a pair of _couleur de
rose_ spectacles for the mental eye), Laurie's Hotel at Agra is very much
more comfortable than the den we abode in at Delhi, and after a good
tiffin we set forth with light hearts to see the Fort.

This, the accumulated achievement of the greatest of the Mogul Emperors,
is a magnificent monument of their power and pride. The earliest part,
built by Akbar, is all of rich red sandstone. The great hall of audience
and other portions show his broad-minded tolerance and catholicity of
taste in being almost pure Hindu in style and decoration. Later, with
Jehangir and Shah Jehan, the high-water mark of sumptuousness was attained
in the use of pure white marb