Abraham might have welcomed his guests, and when we left with
words of deepest gratitude, our host made the beautiful obeisance
of touching his forehead with joined hands as he bowed. To me the
whole incident had an extraordinary grace, and ennobled both host
and guest. But we met an ascending scale of loveliness so varied
in its aspects that I passed from one emotion to another and knew
no sameness.

That afternoon the camp was pitched at the foot of a mighty hill,
under the waving pyramids of the chenars, sweeping their green
like the robes of a goddess. Near by was a half circle of low
arches falling into ruin, and as we went in among them I beheld a
wondrous sight - the huge octagonal tank or basin made by the
Mogul Emperor Jehangir to receive the waters of a mighty Spring
which wells from the hill and has been held sacred by Hindu and
Moslem. And if loveliness can sanctify surely it is sacred
indeed.

The tank was more than a hundred feet in diameter and circled by
a roughly paved pathway where the little arched cells open that
the devotees may sit and contemplate the lustral waters. There on
a black stone, is sculptured the Imperial inscription comparing
this spring to the holier wells of Paradise, and I thought no
less of it, for it rushes straight from the rock with no aiding
stream, and its waters are fifty feet deep, and sweep away from
this great basin through beautiful low arches in a wild foaming
river - the crystal life-blood of the mountains for ever welling
away. The colour and perfect purity of this living jewel were
most marvellous -clear blue-green like a chalcedony, but changing
as the lights in an opal - a wonderful quivering brilliance,