8 The Twenty -Seventh Annual Meeting. 



accompanies such failure. Why is it that we do not in such con- 

 structions profit more thoroughly by the lessons of antiquity ? And 

 who that has visited the Pont du Gard would not take that as his 

 ideal of what a conduit should be ? Again, in India I visited the 

 Mausoleum of the Taj Mahal at Agra, the Kutb Column and the 

 Mosque at Delhi, some of the rock-cut temples of Western India, 

 and the site of the great Akbar's Camp at Futtehpore-Sikri. The 

 impressions made by these marvellous buildings are as fresh now as 

 if I saw them before me. You approach the Taj through a garden 

 with groves of trees on either side, and marble fountains running 

 down its centre, and suddenly there break upon you the marble 

 terraces, the white marble dome inlaid with precious stones, and set 

 as it were in its turrets of red sandstone. It is by the way a debated 

 point whether the design and the details of this mausoleum are of 

 European or of native manufacture. There are in the Christian 

 graveyard at Agra the tombstones of many Italians who lived and 

 died at Akbar's court, but my impression is that the whole is the 

 work of native talent, a talent which has still numbers of living 

 representatives. Then see what could be more emblematic of royalty 

 than Akbar's Camp at Futtehpore-Sikri ? Windsor Castle indeed is 

 a noble building, royally and proudly conspicuous, but it stands alone, 

 whereas at Akbar's Camp there were the whole paraphernalia of a 

 king's residence ; the palace in which he himself dwelt, the hall in 

 which he gave public audience, the place of private business, the 

 Mosque in which he prayed, the minor palaces of his greater 

 ministers, his gardens, his baths and his promenades. All these, 

 thanks to a wonderful climate, are almost in as good preservation 

 now as when Akbar dwelt in them, and although I do not say that 

 we need in our day to imitate them, yet at least they give us 

 lessons, not only in the science of architecture, but in that of good 

 government also. Consider again the subject of some of the rock- 

 cut temples of Western India — take that of Karli in the neighbour- 

 hood of Bombay. The rocks there run north and south, and the 

 temple, or crypt as you may call it, cut out of the solid rock, runs 

 east and west, the entrance being at the west and the shrine at the 

 east end. The interior is of great length and height, and is made 



