holy edifice with
his tongue. We look up and perceive that enough rich honey-comb to fill a
bushel measure is suspended on one of the beams, and so richly laden is
it that the honey steadily drips down. The sanctity of the place, I
suppose, prevents the people molesting the swarm of wild bees that have
selected it for their storehouse, or from relieving them of their honey.

The Taj is said to have cost about two million pounds, even though most
of the labor was performed without pay, other than rations of grain to
keep the workmen from starving. Twenty thousand men were employed upon it
for twenty-two years, and for its inlaid work "gems and precious stones
came in camel-loads from various countries."

The next morning I bid farewell to Agra, more than satisfied with my
visit to the Taj. It stands unique and distinct from anything else one
sees the whole world round. Nothing one could say about it can give the
satisfaction derived from a visit, and no word-painting can do it
justice.

CHAPTER XVI.

FROM AGRA TO SINGAPORE.

A couple of miles from the cantonment, and the broad Jumna is crossed on
a pontoon bridge, the buoys of which are tubular iron floats instead of
boats. Crocodiles are observed floating, motionless as logs, their heads
turned up-stream and their snouts protruding from the water. The road is
undulating for a few miles and then perfectly level, as, indeed, it has
been most of the way from Lahore.

Pilgrims carrying little red flags, and sometimes bits of red paper tied
to sticks, are encountered by the hundred; mayhap they have come from
distant points to gaze upon the beauties of the Taj Mahal, the fame of
which resounds to the farthermost corners of India. They can now see it
across the Jumna, resting on the opposite bank, looking more like a
specimen of the architecture of the skies than anything produced by mere
earthly agency.

A partly dilapidated Mohammedan mosque in the middle of a forty-acre
walled reservoir, overgrown with water-lilies, forms a charming subject
for the attention of my camera. The mosque is approached from an adjacent
village by a viaduct of twenty arches; a propos of its peculiar
surroundings, one might easily fancy the muezzin's call to prayer taking
the appropriate form of, "Come where the water-lilies bloom," instead of
the orthodox, "Allah-il-allah."

Villages are now rows of shops lining the road on either side, sometimes
as much as half a mile in length.