as Mumtazi Mahal, Mumtazi Zemani and Taj Bibi, as well as those of her
royal husband, Shah Jehan, who built this tomb to her memory, repose
here.

[Illustration: MUSSULMAN SCHOOL AT ALLAHABAD.]

But this is not description. The only way to get an idea of the Taj
Mahal is--to go and see it.

"But it is ten thousand miles!" you say.

"But it is the Taj Mahal," I reply with calmness. And no one who has
seen the Taj will regard this answer as aught but conclusive.

But we had to leave it finally--it and Agra--and after a railway
journey of some twelve hours, as we were nearing Allahabad my
companion began, in accordance with his custom, to give me a little
preliminary view of the peculiarities of the town.

"We are now approaching," he said, "a city which distinguishes itself
from those which you have seen by the fact that besides a very rich
past it has also a very bright future. It is situated at the southern
point of the Lower Doab, whose fertile and richly-cultivated plains
you have been looking at to-day. These plains, with their wealth,
converge to a point at Allahabad, narrowing with the approach of the
two rivers,--the Ganges and the Jumna--that enclose them. The Doab,
in fact, derives its name from _do_, "two," and _ab_, "rivers." But
Allahabad, besides being situated at the junction of the two great
water-ways of India--for here the Jumna unites with the Ganges--is
also equally distant from the great extremes of Bombay, Calcutta,