'
Feeling as an Englishman, as we all must sometimes do, be where we
will, I could hardly help wishing that the beautiful panels and
pillars of the bath-room had fetched a better price, and that palace,
Taj, and all at Agra, had gone to the hammer--so sadly do they exalt
the past at the expense of the present in the imaginations of the
people.
The tomb contains in the centre the remains of Khwaja Ghias,[2] one
of the most prominent characters of the reign of Jahangir, and those
of his wife. The remains of the other members of his family repose in
rooms all round them; and are covered with slabs of marble richly
cut. It is an exceedingly beautiful building, but a great part of the
most valuable stones of the mosaic work have been picked out and
stolen, and the whole is about to be sold by auction, by a decree of
the civil court, to pay the debt of the present proprietor, who is
entirely unconnected with the family whose members repose under it,
and especially indifferent as to what becomes of their bones. The
building and garden in which it stands were, some sixty years ago,
given away, I believe, by Najif Khan, the prime minister, to one of
his nephews, to whose family it still belongs.
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