62 THE GARDENS OF THE TAJ 



as the garden coolies, and the sweepers with their 

 brooms, and the bhistis with their water mussicks 

 all clattered noisily through the echoing entrance 

 portal ; and in a somewhat dilatory fashion, with 

 much talk and shouting, the day's work of the 

 garden began. 



The Taj is the one triumph of Indian art in 

 which Moslem and Hindu, official Anglo-Indian 

 and passing English tourist all join to reverence 

 and admire. And in the full prosaic daylight, 

 when the white dome stands up in dazzling 

 sharpness against the deep blue of the sky, 

 nothing is more striking, in a land of great ruins 

 and tawdry modern buildings, than its absolute 

 bloom of perfection. 



The earliest existing plan of the gardens is 

 that made in 1828 by Colonel Hodgson, Surveyor- 

 General in India, from which it will be seen that 

 beautifully kept as they are at present, the 

 grounds have been considerably Europeanised, 

 and cannot now be said to represent the original 

 intention of their makers. For one thing, the 

 heavy mass of trees quite obscures the view of 

 the composition as a whole. The plan is 

 simple : the fourfold field - plot of Babar, the 

 plan of Arama, the ancient Hindu fourfold 



