4 A Sportswoman in India 



weather is a very different place to the white-faced 

 Europeans whom the want of the rupee keeps in their 

 stations. Along the dusty, split, and parched plains, 

 the thermometer at one hundred and two degrees 



The cattle reel beneath the yoke they bear, 

 The earth is iron, and the skies are brass. 



Of this side, as a rule, the traveller sees nothing. 



At present the Punjab claimed us, and the only 

 place at which we stopped on the way north was Agra. 

 Leaving Bombay on Sunday evening, we arrived there 

 on Tuesday afternoon ; and as it was of course com- 

 paratively cool, drove off at once to see the building 

 of which Lord Roberts writes : " Go to India. The 

 Taj alone is worth the journey." 



Built by the great Mogul Shah Jehan in 1630 to 

 the memory of his wife Nur Mahal, the " light of the 

 palace," the Taj Mahal, " the tomb of Mahal/' is 

 not one of the " sights " of India, but one of the 

 wonders of the world. It was twenty-two years in 

 building, though twenty thousand workmen were 

 employed every day ; and it is said to have cost 

 considerably over forty millions of rupees, even in 

 days when labour was all forced. But such a sum 

 is easily accounted for by the marble and jewels alone, 

 which came <c by toiling men and straining cattle, 

 over a thousand wastes, a thousand hills." Out of 

 the sun and glare, from the dazzling blue sky and 

 giddy saffron haze, we walked down the two rows of 

 cypress-trees the Semitic emblem of death, entrance 



