THROUGH THE HEART OF HINDUSTAN 



459 



legged drivers who look for all the world, 

 or at least two thirds of it, like Syrian 

 muleteers skirting the Lebanon. 



where India's capital is being built 



So many capitals have risen and fallen 

 above the dusty plain between the present 

 Delhi and the fcutb Minar that some feel 

 that the Government of India has gone 

 out of its way to tempt fate. The build- 

 ings of the new capital are to be immense. 

 After we had lost our way among the 

 substructures of the wide-stretching pile, 

 my companion, a government official who 

 lives near by, discovered a Court of Vic- 

 tory filled with enough German guns to 

 have reduced Verdun had it not been for 

 French valor. He admitted that this 

 great space was new ground to him. 



It must be as hard for officials of the 

 Government of India to go out from the 

 attractive city to this dusty plain as it 

 was for the xAmerican federal officials to 

 follow John Adams from pleasant Phila- 

 delphia to the wilderness which was to 

 become the city of Washington. 



To me, the most interesting structures 

 on the new Durbar site belong to the 

 building-block school of architecture, and 

 any four-year-old could copy them with 

 complete success. The wide plain at 

 Delhi is swept by hot winds charged with 

 dust, and if these thousands of brick wells 

 succeed in protecting the tiny trees which 

 they inclose, these unimposing piles which 

 mark out the future roads may prove 

 more useful than the Durbar Hall itself. 



If sheltering trees can be made to grow 

 along these branching avenues, they may 

 come to rival the cryptomeria avenue at 

 Nikko or the poplar portals to the capital 

 of Kashmir. How few are the builders 

 who have planted trees and encouraged 

 Father Time to cooperate with them in- 

 stead of letting him pick away with feeble 

 but persistent fingers at decaying piles of 

 brick and stone. 



AT AGRA, IN THE SHADOW OF THE TAJ 

 MAHAL 



It is hard to leave the lovely fort, the 

 imposing mosque, the colorful river bank, 

 and the lively Chandni Chauk, to say 

 nothing of the scenes connected with the 

 Mutiny. But Agra lies ahead and even 

 Delhi must give way to the Taj Mahal. 



All that I can say about the Taj Mahal 



has long since been said. Its loveliness, 

 enhanced by green gardens and mirror- 

 like water-ways, makes it impossible to 

 describe. Pages of type only prove the 

 futility of words to visualize it. One ap- 

 proaches it across a golf course, and the 

 spell which the incomparable structure 

 has, even over those long familiar with it, 

 can be understood when I say that golfers 

 have been known to take their eyes off 

 the ball when driving in the direction of 

 the Taj dome. Never was there a better 

 or more beautiful alibi for indifferent 

 play. 



Visitors to the Taj are marvels at 

 memorizing, and on a busy day one can 

 hear the same sentence repeated from 

 four sides at once ; but it took a woman 

 to show how futile is the task of memor- 

 izing specifications. 



On each corner of the main platform 

 stands a white marble minaret with three 

 balconies. Several times I heard one man 

 speak of the symmetry of the tomb, of 

 the ground, of each detail. To hear his 

 enthusiasm over the perfect balance of 

 the place, one would suspect him of being 

 one of those ambidextrous artists whose 

 right hand knows so well what his left 

 hand is doing that it can exactly imitate it. 



TESTING THE SYMMETRY OF THE TAJ 



I caught up with them later, when we 

 were on the second of the three balconies 

 of one minaret. He was leaning outward 

 over the low balustrade, hanging onto his 

 hat and looking upward to see how much 

 more he would have to climb to reach the 

 top. It was a risky piece of acrobatics 

 and evidently his wife feared for his life. 

 The marble platform, ninety feet or so 

 below, looked hard. 



"Henry, didn't you say that these 

 grounds were perfectly symmetrical?" 



Red faced from his bending, the hus- 

 band glared at his patient wife, but man- 

 aged to keep his voice respectful. 



"Yes, my dear. Everything here is 

 symmetrical." 



She pointed to a twin minaret across 

 the platform. 



"Then, why don't you judge the dis- 

 tance to the top of this one by comparing 

 it with that one over there?" 



Lovely as is the Taj, fairylike as is the 

 view of it from the fort in which his son 

 Aurangzeb imprisoned Shah Jahan, beau- 



