and blossoming trees--a flight of broad steps, we found ourselves at the
end of a rectangular enclosure, at each corner of which stood a red column
not altogether unlike a factory chimney. In the centre was a circular
basin, very wide, and full of clear water, while in front, three white
marble domes rose like great pearls gleaming against the cloudless blue.
The mosque itself is built of red--dark red--sandstone, decorated with
floral designs in white marble.

We climbed one of the minarets, and had a view of the city at our feet,
and the green and fertile plains stretching dim into the shimmering haze
beyond the Ravee River.

Then back to the hotel through the teeming alleys and down to the
station--the road, that we had found so bitterly cold in the early morning,
now a blaze of sunlight, where the dust stirred up by the shuffling feet
of the wayfarers quivered in the heat, and the shadows of men and beasts
lay short and black beneath them.

We were not sorry to seek coolness in the bare railway carriage, and let
the fresh wind fan us as we sat by the open window and watched the flat,
monotonous landscape sliding past.

The journey from Lahore to Rawal Pindi is not a very long one--only about
170 miles, or less than the distance from London to York; but an Indian
train being more leisurely in its movement than the Great Northern Express,
gave us ample time to contemplate the frequent little villages--all very
much alike--all provided with a noisy population, among which dogs and
children were extremely prevalent; the level plains, broken here and there
by clumps of unfamiliar trees, and inhabited by scattered herds of water
buffaloes, cattle, and under-sized sheep, all busily engaged in picking up