FROM LONDON TO AUSTRALIA BY AEROPLANE 



301 



Photograph by E. B. McDowell 



WHERE THE BANGKOK HOUSEWIFE BUYS HER VEGETABLES 



In 1769 Bangkok was a mere agricultural village on the banks of the Me Nam; today it is a 

 splendid capital with 500,000 inhabitants. 



I felt again the keenness of the chase. 

 A friendly R. A. F. pilot came up in a 

 Bristol fighter and flew with us for a 

 few miles along the course of the Jumna. 



Half an hour later the oil-gauge sur- 

 prised us by setting back to zero, and we 

 made an unexpected landing at Muttra, 

 to find that it was happily only a minor 

 trouble — the slipping of the indicator on 

 its spindle. And so into the air once 

 more, and on to Agra — Agra the city of 

 the Taj Mahal. 



Of all the remembered scenes, won- 



derful and beautiful, that of the Taj 

 Mahal remains the most vivid and the 

 most exquisite. There it lay below us, 

 dazzling in the strong sunlight — a vision 

 in marble. Seen from the ground, one's 

 emotions are stirred by the extraordinary 

 delicacy of its workmanship. Mewed 

 from 3,000 feet above, the greater part 

 of its infinite detail is lost, but one sees 

 it as a whole. It lies like a perfectly 

 executed miniature or a matchless white 

 jewel reclining in a setting of Nature's 

 emeralds (page 290). 



