A placid sheet of still water, its surface only broken here and there by
the silvery trails of rippled wake left by the darting shikaras or
slow-moving market boats, lay before us, shining in the crystal-clear
atmosphere. On the right rose the Takht, his thousand feet of rocky
stature dwarfed into insignificance by holy Mahadeo and his peers, whose
shattered peaks ring round the lake to the north, their dark cliffs and
shaggy steeps mirrored in its peaceful surface.
On the lower slopes strong patches of yellow mustard and white masses of
blossoming pear-trees rose behind the tender green fringe of the young
willows.
As we swept on, the lake widened. On the left a network of water lanes
threaded the maze of low-growing brushwood and whispering reeds, and round
us extended the half-submerged patches of soil which form the celebrated
"floating gardens" of the lake. From any point of view except the
utilitarian, these gardens are a fraud. A combination of matted and
decaying water-plants, mud, and young cabbages kept in place by rows and
thickets of willow scrub, is curious, but not lovely; and our eyes turned
away to where Hari Parbat raised his crown of crumbling forts above the
native city, or to the mysterious ruins of Peri Mahal, clinging like a
swallow's nest to the shelving slopes above Gupkar.
"Still onward; and the clear canal
Is rounded to as clear a lake;"
and we emerged from the willow-fringed water lanes, and saw across the
wider shield of glistering water the white cube of the Nishat Bagh
Pavilion--the Garden of Joy, made for Jehangir the Mogul--standing by the
water's edge, and at its foot a great throng and clutter of boats, amidst
whose snaky prows we pushed our way and landed, something stiff after
sitting for two hours in a cramped shikara.
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