VII. DARBAR HALL
There is no finer weather in any latitude on earth than a bright, crisp winter morning in Northern India. The sky is blue without a cloud, the air is cold and bracing without a mist, and a warm Indian sun pours a flood of golden light over domes, minarets and temples, over peaceful villages and miles of waving corn. On such a fine morning Gajapati Singh and Norenda Nath rode through the spacious streets of Agra, and that imperial city looked its best. The modern town of Agra may be said to have been built by Akbar, as the modern town of Delhi was constructed by his grandson, Shah Jahan. Akbar was the first of the great Mogul builders, and the forts of Agra, Allahabad and Attock attest to the greatness of his conception. Architecture became more sumptuous and florid under his grandson, Shah Jahan, and richer material was used in profusion, but for the purest specimens of Indo-Saracenic architecture one turns to the chaste edifices of Akbar, which no constructions of a later date excel in their bold conception and noble execution.
Agra at the close of the sixteenth century was a crowded town as it is to-day, but as Gajapati Singh stood with his companion on an eminence in the suburbs, the distant view of Agra was that of a rural place rather than that of a great city. All the nobles of the Empire, the Rajas and Mansabdars and Omras, had planted trees and laid out gardens suited to a tropical climate round their houses. A sea of luxuri-
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