52 A COLLECTING TRIP 
both sides. Not far off was the largest mosque in 
all India, the Jama Masjid. It was the Mohamme- 
dan Sunday and we saw thousands of people pray- 
ing there, all faced towards Mecca. We were re- 
quired to take our shoes off and put on sandals be- 
fore entering to walk around; the Mohammedans go 
barefooted inside the doors. In this mosque we saw 
the Koran which belonged to Mohammed’s grandson, 
Mohammed’s sandals, very carefully kept in glass 
cases, a fossil footprint of his and one dreadfully 
coarse red hair from his beard. We then went to 
the Jain Temple, which is in a fearfully dirty part 
of the city, with streets only broad enough for 
pedestrians. It stands on a high walled platform, 
approached by steps, and consists of a small white 
marble court with the temple on one side most elabo- 
rately and richly gilded and painted; on the altars 
were gilded statues of the various Jain gods. It was 
very beautiful and interesting. You never saw any- 
thing like the dust in Delhi; it is so thick that it 
looks like fog. A great many of the natives have bad 
coughs as the results of it. The following day we 
drove eleven miles to the old city of Delhi. The 
ruins are superb. The tombs of the old moguls 
are of white marble, elaborately carved and very 
beautiful—but it is useless to keep on, for there are 
not enough adjectives in the English language to 
tell how superb they are. 
Yesterday evening we took a train here to Agra 
and this morning after breakfast we went to the 
famous Taj Mahal. I enclose a photograph of it to 
you. It is really indescribable. Shah Jehan and 
his favorite wife are buried there; twenty-thousand 
