[19]
We were encamped upon a fine green sward outside the entrance to the
south, in a kind of large court, enclosed by a high cloistered wall,
in which all our attendants and followers found shelter. Colonel and
Mrs. King, and some other gentlemen, were encamped in the same place,
and for the same purpose; and we had a very agreeable party. The band
of our friend Major Godby's regiment played sometimes in the evening
upon the terrace of the Taj; but, of all the complicated music ever
heard upon earth, that of a flute blown gently in the vault below,
where the remains of the Emperor and his consort repose, as the sound
rises to the dome amidst a hundred arched alcoves around, and
descends in heavenly reverberations upon those who sit or recline
upon the cenotaphs above the vault, is, perhaps, the finest to an
inartificial car. We feel as if it were from heaven, and breathed by
angels; it is to the ear what the building itself is to the eye; but,
unhappily, it cannot, like the building, live in our recollections.
All that we can, in after life, remember is that it was heavenly, and
produced heavenly emotions.
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