UNDER BLUE HILLS

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 51, 1 March 1930, Page 20

UNDER BLUE HILLS

lodla's Dream Lake

An old Arabian fable tells how King Shedad, by the aid of subtle necromancies, laid out tlio gardens of Irera to rival those of Paradise; and. how for this audacity ,the gods overwhelmed him with a fearful doom. But the gardens of Irem cannot have delighted the eye more than the loveliness of the Pichola Lake at' Udaipur, the capital of the Principality of Mewar, ill Bajputana, writes Hamilton Kerr in the "Daily Telegraph." .'

From its bluo waters, rise two palaces, delicate and illusive as giant lotus buds. Upon their outer face the craftsmen of tho seventeenth century built countless pavilions of rare workmanship, more frail and beautiful than the patterns of the frost. Within their shaded enclosures water splashes over Persian tiles,1 and green ■ parakeets roost iin the boughs- of tho mango trees. They fly nightly from the gardens on the shore, where the vast palace of the Maharana reflects its towers and columned balconies in the waters of the" lake as in a mirror of steel. Upon the horizon are high hills, round and blue, like those the Moghul artists lov ( ed to paint. - ' Twice a year tho Maharana rides out upon the lake in his State barge. The pick of the -Rajput nobles, clothed in their finest jewels and brocades, sit at his feet. As tho barge moves across the waters it resembles. that bird of tho Indian Ocean, fantastically beautiful, of which the Hindu merchant •sings in tho opera. What splendour can rightly fit the'state of a prince who claims descent from three imperial houses? ' But tho fancy ever returns to the Pieliola Lake. As the evening advances the, waters become scarlet with the'fires of sunset. The palace of the Maharana glows like tho famous city of brass,in the Arabian Nights. With the dusk the giant flying foxes quit their lairs. As they swoop for fish they strike the water with tho sound of whip lashes. Presently the drums in tho Hindu temples begin'-to,beat for the worship at sundown. Before Iho imago of the god tho priest continually waves the sacred light in adoration. .And when Uie sun has fallen behind the horizon and the sound of tho drums has died upon the evening breeze, a crescent moon hangs above tho tress. The silence is broken only by tho sound of a voice singing across the wator. ;