Should He
Happen To Read The Glowing Descriptions Of Lalla Rookh, And Be Perhaps
Led To Reflect That -
"If woman can make the worst wilderness dear,
What a heaven she must make of Cashmere!"
He no doubt ejaculates "Wa, wa!" in admiration of the poetry of
the West, and thinks complacently of the partner of his joys as all
his fancy painted her. His highest flights of imagination, however,
probably fail to transplant him very far beyond the actual wilderness
which bounds his mortal vision, while Pudmawutee and Oonmadinee,
as here depicted by his own artistic skill, present, in all their
loveliness of form and feature, his best conceptions of ideal worth
and beauty. No wonder, therefore, that the reality of
"Those roses, the brightest that earth ever gave,
Those grottoes and gardens and fountains so clear!"
and above all of -
"Those love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave,"[11]
should shed its influence largely on his imagination, and that,
in contrast to his own dry and dusty native plains, Cashmere should
well be called the Hindoo's Paradise.
JULY 15. - Marched at dawn for Vernagh, a distance of eight kos,
rather over a Sabbath-day's journey. Here we had to wait a considerable
time for our breakfast, the cook being an indifferent pedestrian and
the day a very hot one. The baradurree was curiously built, close to
an octagon tank, the water from which ran at a great pace through an
arch in the middle of the house.[12] The tank was supplied with
water in great volume, but
from no apparent source, and was filled with fine fish, all sacred,
and as fat as butter, from the plentiful support they receive from the
devout among the Hindoos, not to mention the unbelieving travellers,
who also supply them for amusement.
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