cient number through the various spaces, while the fruit-trees, with the graceful palm, the banyan, and the feathery bamboo, mingle their foliage, and are ornamented by the sweet-scented tamarind and by flowers of the loveliest hue, which bloom in profusion around.
It is difficult to determine whether the exterior or the interior is the more fascinating; each has its own matchless claim, and each is perfect in its loveliness. Externally, the best times to see the Taj are by sunrise or by moonlight. The midday sun shining upon its polished surface is too brilliant for the eye to bear with satisfaction: for a position from whence to view it, the gallery on the top of the entrance-gate inside is decidedly the best point of observation. An hour before the sun rises you may see persons taking their places in that gallery, and there, elevated about sixty feet, they wait for the opening day, and the effect produced is thus well described: “The gray light of morning had not yet appeared when we reached the Taj and made our way up to the top of the gate, to look upon it as it gradually grew into shape and form at the bidding of the rising sun. The moon had just hidden her face beneath the western horizon, and the darkness was at its deepest, presaging the approaching break of day. We looked down upon the immense inclosure crowded with trees mingled together in one undistinguishable mass, gently surging and moaning in the night breeze. Above rose, apparently in the distance, a huge gray-blue mass, without shape or form, which rested like a cloud on the gloomy sea of foliage. Soon a faint glimmer of light appeared in the eastern horizon; as the darkness fled away before its gradually increasing power, the cloud changed first to a light blue, and then developed into shape and proportion; and the minarets, and the cupolas, and dome defined themselves in clearer lines upon the still dark sky beyond. Soon the first rosy tint of the dawn appeared, and as if by magic the whole assumed a roseate hue, which increased as the sun made its appearance, and the Taj stood before us, dazzlingly brilliant in the purest white, absolutely perfect in its fairy proportions. It is impossible to describe it. I had heard of perfection
