Sherman — Birds by the Wayside 261 



wonderful sight except the Taj Mahal its justly great repute 

 was sufficient to have induced me to make the journey half 

 way round the world to see it. Easily we remember Sir 

 Walter Scott's injunction about viewing Melrose Abbey 

 aright, but even more appropriate is this warning for the 

 seeing of the Taj Mahal. I shall always ba grateful to the 

 lady who added the advice that the first visit to this " dream 

 in marble " should be made by moonlight. The fates were 

 propitious for the fulfillment of this suggestion. There was 

 a full moon the evening my train from Cawnpore, about an 

 hour late, arrived in Agra sometime after ten o'clock. In 

 pursuing my itinerary under the direction of Thos. Cook 

 and Son T was always met at each railway station, that I 

 stopped, by a man sent from the hotel where I was to stay, 

 otherwise I might not have ventured to ask that the driver 

 take me to the Taj before going to the hotel. 



It was a memorable ride: the first portion was made under 

 the shadows of the massive and frowning, though impres- 

 sively attractive, walls of Fort Agra ; then for some distance 

 the -road lay amid surroundings that looked in the moonlight 

 like the suburbs of a flourishing American town, whose 

 houses are placed in spacious grounds. This impression does 

 not hold by daylight, but the Taj is isolated from other build- 

 ings by a considerable distance. At the entrance gate the 

 driver left me to spend an hour or more within the garden 

 that lies before the Taj. It may be sufficient to say that the 

 " poem in stone " was all that fancy ever painted it ; or in the 

 words of another — " To describe it would be impossible, 

 and as I saw the Taj that night not a detail, not a single fea- 

 ture impressed itself upon me, but instead the whole, the 

 shape of something infinitely beautiful floats before me just 

 as it did then, and it would not be sacrilegious to say, 'twas 

 a vision such as man may never hope to see until his spirit 

 gazes on the celestial temples through the beautiful gates 

 ajar." 



There were other visitors in the garden ; the seats on the 

 raised platfofm near the center were filled with groups of 



