The Taj Mahal

This magnificent mausoleum in Agra (or, as it is sometimes called, Akbarabad), India, was erected by Shah Jehan, to the memory of his favorite queen.

It is octagonal in form; the four sides which face the cardinal points being one hundred and thirty feet long, the others much smaller. It is built of the finest Jeypore marble, finely polished; and all the beautiful tints of the stone are retained.

The roof is seventy feet high, and expands in the centre into a noble dome seventy feet in diameter, and one hundred and twenty feet high; and when to the height of the dome is added the height of the building and terraces, it shows that the gilt crescent at its apex is two hundred and seventy feet from the ground level. This mausoleum is inlaid with jasper, cornelian, turquoise, agate, onyx, amethysts, and sapphires; and it is said that the whole of the Koran is inlaid within its stately walls.

The sarcophagus of the sultana is in a vault directly under the centre of the building, and near it that of the shah.

There is no part of the exterior, except the dome, that is not covered with arabesques and inscriptions in black marble on the polished white of the surface.

The great dome produces an echo that travellers pronounce to be the finest in the world.

Of this echo, Bayard Taylor has said,--

"A single musical note uttered by the voice floats and soars overhead in long, delicious undulations, fading away so slowly, that you hear it after it is silent, as you see, or seem to see, a lark you have been watching, after it is swallowed up in the blue vault of heaven."

This magnificent edifice was commenced in 1630, and finished in 1647; and, during the seventeen years, twenty thousand workmen were constantly employed upon it. Every province of the empire contributed to its adornment, sending precious stones, of which a list was preserved in the public archives.

Notwithstanding these free gifts and the forced labor of the workmen, the total cost was about twelve millions of dollars.

An English writer has said,--

"Were there nothing to be seen in India but the Taj, it would be, for an artist or an architect, sufficient compensation for the long voyage; for no pen can do justice to its incomparable beauty, and its astonishing grandeur."