Next to the Taj Mahal, the Motee Musjid is the great attraction of Agra. It stands close to the wall of the fort, and its three domes have been compared to bubbles that might be blown away by a gust of wind. Domes, roof, walls, pillars, floors, and all are of white marble, and the whole work is finished as finely as though intended for examination under a microscope. It is not a closed building, like the mosques of Cairo and Constantinople; one side is quite open to a large quadrangle, and as you stand in the latter, with the sun of India beating down on your head, you can see to the very depths of all the arches that support the domes and roof. Doctor Bronson said it was a most perfect specimen of the Saracenic arch, and the boys found that as the arches cut into each other the perspective from any point of view was absolutely bewildering. [Illustration: VIEW OF THE TAJ MAHAL FROM THE GARDEN.] They ended their visit to the Pearl Mosque by climbing the roof, and looking down the river some two miles or more, where the Taj Mahal glistened in the sunlight and pushed its dome-like globe far into the sky. In the afternoon they visited the Taj, and remained there till the sun was setting: they went there again and again during the three or four days they remained at Agra, and when at last they left the city their curiosity and their love of the beautiful tomb of the wife of Shah Jehan were far from satisfied. Frank was the historian of this part of their travels, as we will learn by the following letter: "I thought we had seen several beautiful structures in our travels thus far, and so we have; but none of them can compare with the Taj Mahal. Thanks to the care bestowed upon it by the East Indian Government, it is as perfect to-day as it was 200 years ago, when the builders delivered it to the emperor who ordered it. It is not a mosque but a tomb, and it is the handsomest tomb in the world. That you may know how it happened to be built, I will tell you something of its history. "Shah Jehan, one of the Mogul Emperors of India, was married, in 1615, to _Moomtaz-i-Mahal_. They lived very happily together till she died, in 1629, and then the emperor determined to build her the finest tomb the world had ever seen, in the garden that had been her favorite resort. He summoned all the best architects of the time, and asked them to compete for the contract; his choice fell on Eesa Mohumed Effendi, who had been sent to him by the Sultan of Turkey. Several years were consumed in preparing the plans, more in collecting the necessary materials, and more in the work of construction, so that the building was not finished till upward of twenty years after the death of the lady in whose honor it was erected.