ve, called Muhammad Sharif, who was employed as
an architect on a salary of five hundred rupees a month, and who
became, as I conclude from his name, a Musalman. Shah Jahan had
commenced his own tomb on the opposite side of the Jumna; and both
were to have been united by a bridge.[18] The death of Austin de
Bordeaux, and the wars between his [_scil._ Shah Jahan's] sons that
followed prevented the completion of these magnificent works.[19]

We were encamped upon a fine green sward outside the entrance to the
south, in a kind of large court, enclosed by a high cloistered wall,
in which all our attendants and followers found shelter. Colonel and
Mrs. King, and some other gentlemen, were encamped in the same place,
and for the same purpose; and we had a very agreeable party. The band
of our friend Major Godby's regiment played sometimes in the evening
upon the terrace of the Taj; but, of all the complicated music ever
heard upon earth, that of a flute blown gently in the vault below,
where the remains of the Emperor and his consort repose, as the sound
rises to the dome amidst a hundred arched alcoves around, and
descends in heavenly reverberations upon those who sit or recline
upon the cenotaphs above the vault, is, perhaps, the finest to an
inartificial car. We feel as if it were from heaven, and breathed by
angels; it is to the ear what the building itself is to the eye; but,
unhappily, it cannot, like the building, live in our recollections.
All that we can, in after life, remember is that it was heavenly, and
produced heavenly emotions.

We went all over the palace in the fort, a very magnificent building
constructed by Shah Jahan within fortifications raised by his
grandfather Akbar.[20]

The fretwork and mosaic upon the marble pillars and panels are equal
to those of the Taj; or, if possible, superior; nor is the design or
execution in any respect inferior, and yet a European feels that he
could get a house much more commodious, and more to his taste, for a
much less sum than must have been expended upon it. The Marquis of
Hastings, when Governor-General of India, broke up one of the most
beautiful marble baths of this palace to send home to George IV of
England, then Prince Regent, and the rest of the marble of the suite
of apartments from which it had been taken, with all its exquisite
fretwork and mosaic, was afterwards sold by auction, on account of
our Government, by order of the then Governor-General, Lord