118 THE HISTORY OF KASHMIR
—we may take it as the representative, or rather the culmination of all the rest, and by it we must judge the people of Kashmir at their best.
On a perfectly open and even plain, gently sloping away from a background of snowy mountains, looking directly out on the entire length both of the smiling Kashmir valley and of the snowy ranges which bound it—so situated, in fact, as to be encircled by, yet not overwhelmed by, snowy mountains—stand the ruins of a temple second only to the Egyptians in massiveness and strength, and to the Greek in elegance and grace. It is built of immense rectilinear blocks of lime- stone, betokening strength and durability. Its outline and its detail are bold, simple, and im- pressive. And any over-weighing sense of massive- ness is relieved by the elegante of the surrounding colonnade of graceful Greek-like pillars. It is. but a ruin now, but yet, with the other ruins so numerous in the valley, and so similar in their main characteristics, it denotes the former presence in Kashmir of a people worthy of study. No one without an eye for natural beauty would have chosen that special site for the construction of a temple, and no one with an inclination to the ephemeral and transient would have built-tt-orr
