ether about the Palace. He found a sheet
of steel-blue water, set in purple and grey hills, bound in, on one
side, by marble bunds, the fair white walls of the Palace, and the grey,
time-worn ones of the city; and, on the other, fading away through the
white of shallow water, and the soft green of weed, marsh, and
rank-pastured river-field, into the land.

To enjoy open water thoroughly, live for a certain number of years
barred from anything better than the yearly swell and shrinkage of one
of the Five Rivers, and then come upon two and a half miles of solid,
restful lake, with a cool wind blowing off it and little waves spitting
against the piers of a veritable, albeit hideously ugly, boat-house. On
the faith of an exile from the Sea, you will not stay long among
Palaces, be they never so lovely, or in little rooms panelled with Dutch
tiles.

And here follows a digression. There is no life so good as the life of a
loafer who travels by rail and road; for all things and all people are
kind to him. From the chill miseries of a dak-bungalow where they slew
one hen with as much parade as the French guillotined Pranzini, to the
well-ordered sumptuousness of the Residency, was a step bridged over by
kindly and unquestioning hospitality. So it happened that the Englishman
was not only able to go upon the lake in a soft-cushioned boat, with
everything handsome about him, but might, had he chosen, have killed
wild-duck with which the lake swarms.

The mutter of water under a boat's nose was a pleasant thing to hear
once more. Starting at the head of the lake, he found himself shut out
from sight of the main sheet of water in a loch bounded by a sunk,
broken bund to steer across which was a matter of some nicety. Beyond
that lay a second pool, spanned by a narrow-arched bridge built, men
said, long before the City of the Rising Sun, which is little more than
three hundred years old. The bridge connects the City with Brahmapura--a
whiter walled enclosure filled with many Brahmins and ringing with the
noise of their conches. Beyond the bridge, the body of the lake, with
the City running down to it, comes into full view; and Providence has
arranged for the benefit of such as delight in colours, that the
Rajputni shall wear the most striking tints that she can buy in the
bazaars, in order that she may beautify the ghats where she comes to
bathe.

The bathing-ledge at the foot of the City wall was lighted with women
clad in raw