Townley
fired. It wasn't a tiger, it was a civet cat--a thing rather like a
fox, with a long pointed nose and an uncommonly nasty smell.
"Think," said G., as we looked at it lying stretched out
stiff,--"think of having that thing under our bed! A mouse indeed!"
We didn't say "I told you so," but we looked it.
Boggley comes back to-morrow, and I am going with him to the Grand
Hotel, so that we shall be together for the last little while.
_Agra, April 11_.
... from a chapter in the _Arabian Nights_; from the middle of the
most gorgeous fairy-tale the mind of man could invent, I write to you
to-night.
Often I have heard of the Taj Mahal, read of its beauty, dreamed of
its magic, but never in my dreams did I imagine anything so exquisite,
so perfect.
Boggley thought I should not leave India without seeing this "miracle
of miracles--the final wonder of the world," so we left Calcutta on
Monday night by the Punjab mail and came to Agra, and we have done
it all in proper order. Yesterday, in the morning, we motored to
the deserted city, the capital of Akbar, the greatest of the Mogul
emperors, about twenty miles off. It has battlemented walls and great
gates like a fairy-tale city. The bazaar part of it is mostly in
ruins, but the royal part is perfectly preserved and could be lived in
comfortably now. There is Akbar's Council Chamber, the houses of his
wives, the courtyard where they played living chess, the stables,
waterworks, the palaces of his chief ministers, the mosque and
cloisters, the Gate of Victory.
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