tion Cauvery Falls Power Station, Kolar Gold
Fields, in "Vision of India:" by Sidney Low (Smith, Elder & Co.).

The Falls of Gairsoppa, it is decided in our evening confab, we must
see, and we smoke various cheroots over them. So far we go in train, I
understand, towards the coast and the wild west, then we get into tongas
and creep down and under jungle day after day, an immensity of trees
towering above till the wholesome light of the sky is shut out and you
breathe in the damp depths of the primeval jungle, and see huge
mosquitoes and diminutive aboriginal men with bows and arrows hiding
from you like the beasts in the field that perish. So you travel day in
day out, spending nights in Dak bungalows with nothing to eat but tins.
I said, "It seems a damned long, dark, boggy, dangerous road," and D.
was shocked, till I reminded her I was only quoting Tony Lumpkin. The
explanation being doubtfully accepted, D. expatiated on the delight of
coming out of the gloom to find all the stir and movement and light in
the great opening where there was 829 feet of water tumbling into a
cauldron full twenty fathoms deep, blue sky overhead, foam everywhere,
rainbows, and more falls below, and glittering wet rocks and waving
foliage all round. A hard place to fish, I thought. And believe I will
just fancy I see this place too; it sounds rather a "circumbendibus" for
us this journey.

And why leave Bangalore at all? Why fatigue ourselves seeing more places
and sights than these we have near us? We feel inclined to pitch our
tents here for a prolonged stay, the light is so brilliant and air sunny
and refreshing, and there are subjects for pictures on all sides of all
kinds; of village life, people, beasts and foliage--such exquisite Corot
foliage--and reflections in reedy pools.

As I write, within a stone throw of my dressing-room, there appears a
queenly figure, draped in crimson edged with gold, from the shadows of
the trees. She stands in full sun, beside grey boulders under green
foliage; cattle finely bred, like deer, feed on either side of her, and
the sapling stems draw shadows on their fawn and white hides, and across
the withered, short, dry grass. She belongs to R.'s establishment, I
suppose--wife of a Sweeper perhaps, but at this distance she might be a
Grecian goddess for she is too far off to distinguish features. The
golden brown of her face and the blue-black of the hair under the
crimson and gold in full afternoon su