Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet by William Henry Knight
page 65 of 276 (23%)
page 65 of 276 (23%)
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lake, in order to pay a visit to his Highness's gaol, where we were
received by a very civil gaoler, equipped with a massive sword and dilapidated shield. We found 110 prisoners in the place, employed generally in converting dhan into chawul, or, in other words, clearing the rice-crop. There was also a mill for mustard oil, and the most primitive machine for boring fire-arms ever invented, both worked by water-power. The prison dress was uniform in the extreme: it consisted simply of a suit of heavy leg-irons and nothing more! After seeing the fair, we paddled across through a perfect water-meadow to the Shalimar gardens, where we found the Rajah and his suite just taking their departure. The vista on entering the gardens was extremely pretty: four waterfalls appear at the same moment, sending a clear sheet of crystal water over a broad stone slab, and gradually receding from sight in the wooded distance. A broad canal runs right through the gardens, bridged at intervals by summer-houses and crossed by carved and quaintly-fashioned stepping stones. At the extremity there is a magnificent baradurree of black marble, which looks as if it had been many centuries in existence, and had originally figured in some very different situation. The pillars were entire to a length of seven feet, and were highly polished from the people leaning against them. Around this, in reservoirs of water, were about two hundred fountains, all spouting away together, and on one side a sheet of the most perfectly still water I ever saw. It appeared exactly like a large looking-glass, and it was impossible to discern where the artificial bank which inclosed it either began or terminated. In these gardens it was that Selim, or Jehangeer the son of Akbar, used to spend so many of his days with the far-famed Noor Jehan in the beginning of the seventeenth century, and here was the scene of their |
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