The Maharajah, of course, did not lunch with us, but held aloof, peeping
occasionally into the cook-house to satisfy himself that the lions were
being fed properly, and in accordance with their unclean customs.
Finally, he and his chief officers of state vanished into a secluded tent,
where he probably took a little refreshment, having first carefully
performed the ablutions necessary after the contamination of the
unbeliever.
His Highness reappeared from nowhere in particular as his guests strolled
across the terrace, and, after a little polite conversation, we took our
leave and set forth for Srinagar.
It was a glorious afternoon, and we deeply regretted that time would not
permit us to visit the neighbouring Shalimar Bagh, which lay hidden among
the trees near by. The excursion must remain a "hope deferred" for the
present, as we had again to thread the maze of half-submerged melon plots
and miniature kitchen gardens which, even in the golden glow of a perfect
evening, could not be made to fit in with our preconceived ideas of
"floating gardens." Jane was frankly disappointed, as she admitted to
having pictured in her mind's eye a series of peripatetic herbaceous
borders in full flower, cruising about the lake at their own sweet will
and tended by fair Kashmirian maidens.
By-the-bye, here let me expose, once for all, the fallacy of Moore's
drivel about the lovely maids of fair "Cashmere." _There are none!_ This
appears a startling statement and a sweeping; but, as a matter of fact,
the Eastern girl is not left, like her Western sister, to flirt and frivol
into middle age in single "cussedness," but almost invariably becomes a
respectable married lady at ten or twelve, and drapes her lovely, but not
over clean, head in the mantle of old sacking, which it is _de rigueur_
for matrons to adopt.
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