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114 In the latter part of the summer he would feel relief from the periodical rains. An interval of tolerable weather in the autumn would present itself, during which he might visit the relics of Mughal glory that are scattered round this veritable tomb of the richest empire that was ever established by Moslem arms. As Delhi is a sister capital of Agra, he might almost have considered the fallen empire as broken into two fragments, of which one lay entombed at Delhi, but the larger one at Agra. He would note the country seat and hunting ground of Akbar the Great at Fatehpur Síkri, where the Moslem Emperor held the nightly debates on eclectic religion; the tomb of that puissant Emperor at Sikandra, graven with a hundred names of the Deity; the lovely though majestic proportions and the glistening marble of the Táj Mausoleum, mirrored in the stream of the Jumna; the red sand-stone fortress overhanging the river; the peerless mosque of marble; and the lattice- window where the dying emperor Sháh Jahán was placed to take his last look at the Táj.

For the whole or a part of several summers he sojourned at Agra. But during other summers he had the advantage of avoiding the hottest months by spending the time at Simla, where all his correspondence followed him. This place was beyond his jurisdiction, being at first on the North-West Frontier before the Punjab wars, and afterwards reckoned among the Punjab dependencies. It is now a fine alpine settlement and the summer resort of the Empire; in those days it was a rising station amidst