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192 and guides let us alone. We found, after many comparative tests, that the best full view of the Taj is to be had from the second story of the entrance gateway; the best sunset view from the west pavilion over the river angle of the terrace, reached by a staircase in the mosque ; and the best moonlight effect is that obtained from the opposite east pavilion, reached by the corresponding stairway in the Response.

There were Philistines among some of the early English commanders at Agra, the most soulless of them all being that Lord William Bentinck who wanted to sell the Taj Mahal, and actually considered the offer of thirty thousand pounds from a rich Hindu. One gasps, too, to hear how the Maharaja of Sindhia entertained a viceroy in the enchanted garden, serving supper in the Response, ham and champagne, "swine's flesh and wine," in the architectural counterpart of the Mosque. Lord Auckland also was entertained in the Taj, when there were games in the garden, with roars of laughter, and ham and champagne again in the Response. In the same way, a ball was given for Lord Ellenborough after the siege of Kabul, lanterns were strung on the cypress-trees, there was dancing to military music on the marble platform, and supper in the Response, as usual. The native press denounced this desecration of a tomb and place of worship, but the Agra officials argued that the Response was not a mosque, and, if it were, it had long since lost sanctity by its desecration by Jats and Hindus. Moreover, they said that the literal translation of its name was "the feast-