will, I could hardly help wishing that the beautiful panels and
pillars of the bath-room had fetched a better price, and that palace,
Taj, and all at Agra, had gone to the hammer--so sadly do they exalt
the past at the expense of the present in the imaginations of the
people.

The tomb contains in the centre the remains of Khwaja Ghias,[2] one
of the most prominent characters of the reign of Jahangir, and those
of his wife. The remains of the other members of his family repose in
rooms all round them; and are covered with slabs of marble richly
cut. It is an exceedingly beautiful building, but a great part of the
most valuable stones of the mosaic work have been picked out and
stolen, and the whole is about to be sold by auction, by a decree of
the civil court, to pay the debt of the present proprietor, who is
entirely unconnected with the family whose members repose under it,
and especially indifferent as to what becomes of their bones. The
building and garden in which it stands were, some sixty years ago,
given away, I believe, by Najif Khan, the prime minister, to one of
his nephews, to whose family it still belongs.[3] Khwaja Ghias, a
native of Western Tartary, left that country for India, where he had
some relations at the imperial court, who seemed likely to be able to
secure his advancement. He was a man of handsome person, and of good
education and address. He set out with his wife, a bullock, and a
small sum of money, which he realized by the sale of all his other
property. The wife, who was pregnant, rode upon the bullock, while he
walked by her side. Their stock of money had become exhausted, and
they had been three days without food in the great desert, when she
was taken in labour, and gave birth to a daughter. The mother could
hardly keep her seat on the bullock, and the father had become too
exhausted to afford her any support; and in their distress they
agreed to abandon the infant. They covered it over with leaves, and
towards evening pursued their journey. When they had gone on about a
mile, and had lost sight of the solitary shrub under which they had
left their child, the mother, in an agony of grief, threw herself
from the bullock upon the ground, exclaiming, 'My child, my child!'
Ghias could not resist this appeal. He went back to the spot, took up
his child, and brought it to its mother's breast. Some travellers
soon after came up, and relieved their distress, and they reached
Lahore, where the