House and Garden 
to the poor. It would be quite in accordance 
with Mogul custom to establish a public 
orchard as part of a religious and charitable 
foundation. Jahangir in his memoirs, after 
telling us that large and lofty shade-trees 
had been planted by his orders all along the 
road from Agra to Lahore, a distance of 
four hundred miles, adds that in his reign 
many benevolent persons had laid out spa¬ 
cious gardens and plantations containing 
every description of fruit-tree, so that trav¬ 
ellers in all parts of his dominions could find 
at convenient distances rest-houses and a 
refreshing supply of fruit and vegetables. 
Let us take the fruit-trees which Jahangir 
mentions in the description of the garden at 
Ahmedabad, i. e., orange, lemon, peach, 
pomegranate and apple-trees. Colonel Hodg¬ 
son’s plan indicates that in 1828 the trees 
were planted in the middle and in the centre 
of each of the sides, of the smallest square 
beds. Cypresses were placed on the outer 
corners of the squares, alternating with the 
other trees. This would be quite in har¬ 
mony with Mogul traditions. 
But there is another point to consider 
before we proceed further. If the whole of 
the square plots are filled up with fruit-trees, 
the effect will certainly be very monotonous. 
It will be remembered that Bernier, in his 
description quoted above, says that the 
garden to the right and left of the dome 
was covered with trees “and many parterres 
of flowers.” I think, therefore, it is highly 
probable that in the centre of each of the 
four main subdivisions of the gardens a 
space was kept for flower beds. According 
to Mogul ideas of gardening this could only 
be the squares ACDB, which I have marked 
on the plan, containing sixteen of the smallest 
square beds. The Anguri Bagh in the Agra 
Fort, another of Shah Jahan’s gardens, 
gives a very good idea of how such a 
flower garden would be laid out: it was 
panelled into geometric parterres of flowers 
such as Bernier described. Colonel Hodgson’s 
plan also shows that the four angle beds, 
EEEE, adjoining the central platform, were 
planted in a different way to the others. 
1 would suggest that here, on the edges which 
face the platform, we should plant the areca- 
nut palm which, as we have seen, was often 
found in Mogul gardens. Towering with 
their graceful heads above the cypress-trees, 
they would mark the centre of the gardens 
and make a pleasant break in the long lines 
of the main avenues, without obstructing the 
view of the monument. With their slender 
stems they would repeat the idea of the grace¬ 
ful detached minarets at the four corners of the 
Taj platform and contrast finely with them. 
Some of the good people at Agra have been 
very much distressed at the cutting down 
of the large trees which have been allowed 
to grow up in the gardens, especially of a 
great pipal (sacred fig-tree), which, it is 
asserted, is probably as old as the Tai itself. 
This, I venture to say, is an impossibility. 
The sacred tree of the Hindus rarely found 
a place in the Mogul gardens. I myself 
could view with complacency the removal 
of a great many of the trees in the present Taj 
gardens, for they have been planted, or al¬ 
lowed to plant themselves, without any con¬ 
sideration for the artistic ideas of the creators 
of one of the world’s masterpieces. 
187 
