On the top of the building, which is three or four stories
high, is another marble slab, corresponding with the one in the vault
below.[25] This is beautifully carved, with the 'nau nauwe nam'-the
ninety-nine names, or attributes of the Deity, from the Koran.[26] It
is covered by an awning, not to protect the tomb, but to defend the
'words of God' from the rain, as my cicerone assured me.[27] He told
me that the attendants upon this tomb used to have the hay of the
large quadrangle of forty acres in which it stands,[28] in addition
to their small salaries, and that it yielded them some fifty rupees a
year; but the chief native officer of the Taj establishment demanded
half of the sum, and when they refused to give him so much, he
persuaded his master, the European engineer, _with much difficulty_,
to take all this hay for the public cattle. 'And why could you not
adjust such a matter between you, without pestering the engineer?'
'Is not this the way', said he, with emotion, 'that Hindustan has cut
its own throat, and brought in the stranger at all times? Have they
ever had, or can they ever have, confidence in each other, or let
each other alone to enjoy the little they have in peace?' Considering
all the circumstances of time and place, Akbar has always appeared to
me among sovereigns what Shakespeare was among poets; and, feeling as
a citizen of the world, I reverenced the marble slab that covers his
bones more, perhaps, than I should that over any other sovereign with
whose history I am acquainted.
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