sacred by all Hindus. The hair of devotees is carefully shared off, even eyebrows and eyelashes, and allowed to drop into the river. For every hair dropped into the waters a million of years in Paradise is promised. The attendant priests and barbers, of course, make a good thing out of this festival.

These pilgrims, men and women, have come from all parts of India, some on foot for many a long weary mile; for during the months of December and January every faithful Hindu must, at least once in his life, journey to Allahabad, and bathe at the spot where the two sacred rivers unite their waters. All the precautions taken by the English authorities cannot prevent a certain number of suicides every year, of enthusiasts, who, eager to assure themselves of Paradise, choose to quit life at this moment, when by the cleansing baptism they are purified from all sin.

Curious sights are to be seen at Allahabad during the time of this festival. Here are the Fakirs, those holy beggars who, like mediaval ascetics, espouse poverty and self-mortification as their rule of life. And no sham penances have we here-no boiling of the peas, no sparing of the lash. Here is one, with his bones breaking through his skin, and his skeleton arms held above his head, the joints, as one can see, being able to bend no longer, and the long, crooked nails of the bony hands being like birds' talons, who has kept this attitude for ten or perhaps twenty years; here is another with his head twisted under one arm and the chest grown into a frightful curve; and here are others and others with self-inflicted distortions too horrible for description. Now we come upon groups of priests with wild chants and the music of tomtoms surrounding sacred bulls, the marks of special sanctity being some natural defect, such as a withered limb or a horn too many. If we enter the fair itself, we come upon straw booths, forming a sort of street, and, by way of wares, idols and rosaries, and false jewellery and bright drinking vessels, and all kinds of glittering trash delightful to the native eye. Here and there among the booths we may catch sight of a missionary, striving hard to make an impression on the few idlers who surround him. On the banks of the river the sight is extremely picturesque and pretty. There are the fluttering many-hued clouds of garments, there are the dark-skinned bathers standing up to their knees in the stream, pouring over their heads from bright copper vessels the water, which gleams and glistens in the sunlight, and there, overhanging the beautiful blue Jumna, are Akbar's fort and the ruins of the cld town long since destroyed.

AGRA

Upon the right bank of the Jumna, 300 miles above its confluence with the Ganges, stands Agra, with a population of 149,000. There has been a town here since the earliest years of the Christian era, but its Hindu history was insignificant. It was Akbar who, in 1556, made it the capital of the great Mogul Empire, and who, with his renowned citadel and splendid palaces and mosques, made Akbarabad (as the natives still call it, a city of marvels. The present city is four miles long by three broad; in the sixteenth century it was a walled city 26 miles in circumference, with 100 mosques, SO serails, 800 public baths, 15 bazaars, and a population of 600,000. The modern town, very largely constructed of ancient material, is rapidly rising in importance as a commercial

centre. But the chief interest of Agra, in a picturesque point of view, attaches to its monuments of the past. The splendid palaces of the Omrahs are no more, and Mahratta bankers and Hindu merchants have built their establishments upon the sites. But the crowd that is ever passing to and fro between the two-storeyed cabins of the Indian Bazaar is treading on stone pavements that have stood the wear and tear of fifteen generations, and the glorious creations of Akbar and his successors still remain to tell of the pomp and splendour of the court that astonished the ambassadors of Queen Elizabeth.

The great citadel of Akbar and the magnificent buildings it encloses form the chief attraction of Agra. Outside the fortress, opposite to the principal gate, stands the Jumma Musjid, or Great Mosque, built in 1644 by the Emperor Shah Jehan in the name of his daughter Jehanará, who subsequently shared his captivity after his dethronement by Aurungzebe. It is a noble building of red sandstone, with broad flights of steps, pointed doorways, and low domes.

The citadel, with its red walls seventy feet high, forms an imposing object. It is half a mile in circuit, but its strength is more apparent than real. In the age of swords and lances and arrows it was impregnable, but it could not stand against modern gunnery. When Lord Lake besieged it, the first gun did such damage that the citadel had to surrender immediately.

Numerous are the buildings enclosed by the fort. Not far from the colossal portal of the inner rampart stands the Dewanni-aum, or Public Audience Hall, completed by Aurungzebe in 1685. It is one of the largest halls in India, 192 feet long by 61 broad. Here sat the Mogul Emperors to receive foreign envoys. "The splendid marble hall of the Dewanni-aum," says Chunder, "which has witnessed so many durbars and pageants; in which were received ambassadors from near the setting sun, from a great city of infidels called London, where reigned a woman, who had given to an association of merchants the exclusive privilege of freighting ships from her dominions to the Indian seas the self-same hall is now an armoury of the Lieutenants of another woman reigning at the present day in that identical city of London." Here is preserved the throne of Akbar-a marble seat inlaid with precious stones-and here are the famous carved gates, eleven feet high and nine broad, alleged to have once belonged to Krishna's temple at Somnauth in Guzerat. Removed by Sultan Mahmoud to Ghuzni in the tenth century, they were brought thence to Agra by Lord Ellenborough.

The well-preserved Imperial Palace extends at the back of the Arsenal. Upon substructures of red sandstone, the white marble terraces and corridors and castellated walls link the numerous pavilions crowned with gilded domes. We cannot describe in detail the numerous halls, courts, and apartments. Fine mosaics adorn the interiors, and carved marble, resembling lace, partly shades the windows that look down into the romantic Jumna valley. The Shish Mahal, or Palace of Glass, was the imperial bath-room; it is panelled with lapis lazuli inlaid with gold. Thousands of small mirrors and numerous fountains seem to recall a dream of the "Arabian Nights." Here once stood the bath of Shah Jehan-a single block of white marble forty feet in circumference. Lord Hastings removed it, to send it to George IV., but what became of it is unknown.

The finest architectural monument of the fortress is the Motee Musjid, or Pearl Mosque. Its three domes of white marble and gilded spires rise above a lofty sandstone platform. A triple row of Saracenic arches divides the corridor beneath the dome into three aisles. "The Motee Musjid," says Bayard Taylor, "can be compared to no other edifice I have ever seen. While its architecture is the purest Saracenic, which some suppose cannot exist without ornament, it has the severe simplicity of Doric art. It has, in fact, nothing which can properly be called ornament. It is a sanctuary so pure and stainless, revealing so exalted a spirit of worship, that I felt humbled as a Christian to think that our noble religion has never inspired its architects to surpass this temple to God and Mohammed." It was built by Shah Jehan in 1656, as a private chapel for the ladies of the harem, and was doubtless intended to crown the whole citadel. But the general effect has been considerably spoilt by the erection, on a level with the Pearl Mosque, of the two immense British barracks.

But Akbar's fort, with all its attractions and curiosities, only a few of which we have briefly noticed, is rivalled by the wondrous Taj Mahal. A level strand leads from the foot to the vast quadrangle of red sandstone that encloses the marvellous edifice. On passing through a stupendous portal the Taj is revealed in its fascinating beauty-marking (as a recent writer says) "an epoch in a man's life." From a spacious terrace of white marble, with a tall minaret at each corner, rises the splendid mausoleum to a height of 275 feet— the loftiest edifice on the plains of India: "more like a vision of beauty than a reality ; a dream in solid, palpable, and permanent marble; a thought, an idea, a conception of tenderness; a sigh, as it were, of eternal devotion and heroic love, caught and imbued with such immortality as the world can give."

Mumtáz-i-Mahal, or Exalted of the Palace, was playing at cards one day with her husband, the Emperor Shah Jehan, when she asked him what he would do if he survived her. The emperor fondly promised to build her a tomb that should hand down her name. through all the ages, and be the admiration of the world. The empress died two hours after giving birth to a daughter, on July 18th, 1631. Whilst dying, she reminded the emperor of the promised tomb. According to Tavernier, 20,000 workmen laboured for twenty-two years on the edifice. It consists of a central mausoleum, whose octagonal base is 186 feet in diameter, surmounted by a great dome and pointed spire, crowned by a crescent. Of the two wings, one is a splendid mosque, the other an imitation mosque, to preserve the harmony of the edifice. But no mere description can give an idea of the complexity and intricacy with which the whole design is worked out. The interior is a marvel of decorative workmanship; the pure white marble walls are relieved with coloured marble wreaths and scrolls, and there is a lavish display of richly-fretted stone-work, and rare inlaid-work of agate and jasper and other precious stones, flooded with the soft light that mellows through a double screen of pierced marble. Beneath the dome are the tombs of the emperor and his wife, enclosed in a marble trellis-work. Shah Jehan intended to have built a second Taj on the other side of the Jumna, and to have united the two with a bridge of fairy-like beauty; but his schemes were cut short by his dethronement by his son Aurungzebe, and his subsequent imprisonment in the palace at Agra.

Dr. Russell records how a lady said of the Taj, "I cannot criticise, but I can tell

you what I feel. I would die to-morrow to have such a tomb." And he adds, “ Holy and profane men, poets, prosers, and practical people, all write of the Taj in the same strain." You can no more describe it, however, than you can describe Constantinople. Here are some of the utterances of those who have seen it :-"Too pure, too holy to be the work of human hands;" "A poem in marble;" "The sigh of a broken heart; " "Poetic marble arrayed in eternal glory;" "The inspiration is from heaven, the execution worthy of it;" "The marble 'Queen of Sorrow,' which has power to dim every eye."

There is a wonderful echo from the vaulted roof of the dome when prayers are read; the grumbling chant awakens echoes that sound like the responses of some vast congregation.

If the Taj be the most beautiful tomb in the world, that of Akbar at Sikundra, seven miles from Agra, is the grandest. It is a mausoleum of red sandstone, 300 feet square, built in five storeys, each diminishing from the base to the marble storey at the height of 100 feet. "Every terrace is ornamented with an arched gallery and cupolas, said to bear relation to the division of the empire over which he who rests below once ruled in dignity and power. Without going so far as Mr. Bayard Taylor, who considers Sikundra nobler in conception, and more successful as an embodiment of Saracenic art, than the Alcazar or Alhambra, it may be admitted that it stands among the grandest monuments of any kind ever reared by man."

We must barely mention the Etmaddowlah, the fantastic mausoleum built by the Emperor Jehangir above the tomb of Chaja Aias, the father of his beloved Nour Mahal, whose beauty and whose crimes were alike renowned throughout the empire. In all the district round, especially at Futtehpore Sikri, are numerous mausoleums and remains of palaces, telling of the grandeur and power of the old Mogul Empire.