chastely
embellished, and so exquisitely finished, fills the mind of the
spectator with emotions of wonder and delight; without any such aid,
he feels that it is among the towers of the earth what the Taj is
among the tombs--something unique of its kind that must ever stand
alone in his recollections.[18]

It is said to have taken forty-four years in building, and formed the
left of two 'minars' of a mosque. The other 'minar' was never
raised, but this has been preserved and repaired by the liberality of
the British Government.[19] It is only 242 feet high, and 106 feet in
circumference at the base. It is circular, and fluted vertically into
twenty-seven semicircular and angular divisions. There are four
balconies, supported upon large stone brackets, and surrounded with
battlements of richly cut stone, to enable people to walk round the
tower with safety. The first is ninety feet from the base, the second
fifty feet further up, the third forty further; and the fourth
twenty-four feet above the third. Up to the third balcony, the tower
is built of fine, but somewhat ferruginous sandstone, whose surface
has become red from exposure to the oxygen of the atmosphere. Up to
the first balcony, the flutings are alternately semicircular and
angular; in the second story they are all semicircular, and in the
third all angular. From the third balcony to the top, the building is
composed chiefly of white marble; and the surface is without the deep
flutings. Around the first story there are five horizontal belts of
passages from the Koran, engraved in bold relief, and in the Kufic
character. In the second story there are four, and in the third
three. The ascent is by a spiral staircase within, of three hundred
and eighty steps; and there are passages from this staircase to the
balconies, with others here and there for the admission of light and
air.[20]

A foolish notion has prevailed among some people, over-fond of
paradox, that this tower is in reality a Hindoo building, and not, as
commonly supposed, a Muhammadan one. Never was paradox supported upon
more frail, I might say absurd, foundations. They are these: 1st,
that there is only one Minar, whereas there ought to have been two--
had the unfinished one been intended as the second, it would not have
been, as it really is, larger than the first; 2nd, that other
Minars seen in the present day either do not slope inward from the
base up at all, or do not slope so much as this