Note 3 — Last Days of Travel.

It is situated on the banks of the Jumna, with a fine view of the magnificent fort, with its mosque and minarets, and is entirely of pure white marble, inlaid with stones into shapes of flowers and arabesques, &c. At each corner rises a white marble minaret, like a pillar of snow, beautifully decorated and carved, but unsullied by a single line of any other colour whatever. The interior is profusely inlaid with minute stones of considerable value, and is lit by carved marble windows of the most beautiful design imaginable. In the centre, surrounding the tomb of Mûmtaz and her lord, is a marvellous white marble screen, in the form of a polygon, carved like perforated ivory, and also inlaid with minute stones of every shape and colour.3 The queen, in whose honour the tomb was built, occupies the very centre of the enclosure, Shah Jehan’s tomb being on one side of it, and larger in size, which rather spoils the symmetry of the space.