once by a tragic black pool shaded by two enormous banian-trees, where Scotch whisky and soda was insistently offered us by a black keeper of a refreshment booth. The temple domes on the mountain-top showed in sky-line; the golden plain shimmered far below US; and in six and a half hours we accomplished the sixteen miles. We dragged along beside a lake in the late sunset as bullock-carts filled with rosy English children came from a picnic. There were rice-fields on the mountain top, flooded by primitive Persian water-wheels, wonderfully green and thriving crops, and groups of palms in every vista. Violets bloomed by the dak bangla's doorsteps, where a fine old khansamah greeted us and gave us tea with Goanese guava jelly on crisp toast in a warm room.
Mount Abu is the headquarters of the resident who rules the seventeen Rajput principalities, and from him we secured a permit to visit the Jain temples. The Jains are the last of the Buddhists left in India and their creed is still closely akin to that Gautama devised for his people, although their observance of caste is contrary to the fundamental principle of Buddhism. A Rajput officer in European coat, draped dhotee, and a sword as his badge of race and rank, with a red-coated chuprassy from the Residency, escorted us the next morning the two miles to the Dilwarra shrines. The guard at the temple gate hurriedly wound himself into his kamarband, set his turban straight, and, shouldering his carbine, paced the flags energetically while we waited for the permits to be examined.
