"There is a wonderful echo in the dome of the Taj; it repeats every sound of the voice with great distinctness, but will disappoint any one who tries to sing a complicated piece of music beneath it. If the notes are at all rapid, the echo runs them into one another, and makes a complete discord, but it is not so with very slow music. An English writer says the chord of the seventh produces a very beautiful effect, and it was this chord that Bayard Taylor heard and described as floating and soaring overhead in a long, delicious undulation, fading away so slowly that you hear it after it is silent, as you see, or seem to see, a lark you have been watching after it has been swallowed up in the blue vault of heaven. "An English lady, who visited the Taj some years ago, said to her husband as they walked away from the building, 'If I could be assured of such a monument to my memory, I would willingly die to-morrow.' They were newly married, and the husband was not at all wealthy; consequently, the desired assurance was not given, and the lady did not die. Probably there are many ladies and men, too, that have seen the Taj who would share her opinion, as the building is, beyond dispute, the finest of its kind on the face of the globe." [Illustration: GATE-WAY OF SECUNDRA GARDEN.] Thus ended Frank's letter. The Doctor pronounced it an excellent description of the Taj Mahal, and was sure it would be read with interest by all the Bassett family, and anybody else who could have access to it. Fred's turn for letter-writing came next. An excursion had been arranged for visiting some interesting ruins at Futtehpoor-Sikra, twenty-one miles from Agra, and the account of this journey was assigned to Frank's cousin. The young man went at his task with great enthusiasm, and with the following result: [Illustration: TOMB OF THE EMPEROR AKHAR AT AGRA.] "Futtehpoor-Sikra was once a city three miles in length, with a rocky hill in the centre. The Mogul Emperor, Akbar, father of the Emperor Juhangeer, selected it as a royal residence, and built one of the finest palaces in all India on the rocky hill I have mentioned. The city has gone, and its site has been converted into fields; the ruins of the palace remain, and are the most extensive we have yet seen. They are a century older than the Taj Mahal, at Agra, and are not in as good a state of preservation. When I tell you that for nearly a mile along a rocky ridge you have an almost unbroken succession of buildings, you can understand that the palace and its surroundings were on a grand scale.