And if loveliness can sanctify surely it is sacred
indeed.
The tank was more than a hundred feet in diameter and circled by
a roughly paved pathway where the little arched cells open that
the devotees may sit and contemplate the lustral waters. There on
a black stone, is sculptured the Imperial inscription comparing
this spring to the holier wells of Paradise, and I thought no
less of it, for it rushes straight from the rock with no aiding
stream, and its waters are fifty feet deep, and sweep away from
this great basin through beautiful low arches in a wild foaming
river - the crystal life-blood of the mountains for ever welling
away. The colour and perfect purity of this living jewel were
most marvellous -clear blue-green like a chalcedony, but changing
as the lights in an opal - a wonderful quivering brilliance,
flickering with the silver of shoals of sacred fish.
But the Mogul Empire is with the snows of yesteryear and the
wonder has passed from the Moslems into the keeping of the Hindus
once more, and the Lingam of Shiva, crowned with flowers, is the
symbol in the little shrine by the entrance.
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