No wonder, therefore, that to the Hindoo at least,
"Cashmere is all holy land." From his sun-burnt plains and his home
by the muddy banks of his sacred Ganges, he can form but a small
conception of these cooling streams and shady pleasures. Should he
happen to read the glowing descriptions of Lalla Rookh, and be perhaps
led to reflect that --
"If woman can make the worst wilderness dear,
What a heaven she must make of Cashmere!"
He no doubt ejaculates "Wa, wa!" in admiration of the poetry of
the West, and thinks complacently of the partner of his joys as all
his fancy painted her. His highest flights of imagination, however,
probably fail to transplant him very far beyond the actual wilderness
which bounds his mortal vision, while Pudmawutee and Oonmadinee,
as here depicted by his own artistic skill, present, in all their
loveliness of form and feature, his best conceptions of ideal worth
and beauty. No wonder, therefore, that the reality of
"Those roses, the brightest that earth ever gave,
Those grottoes and gardens and fountains so clear!"
and above all of --
"Those love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave,"[11]
should shed its influence largely on his imagination, and that,
in contrast to his own dry and dusty native plains, Cashmere should
well be called the Hindoo's Paradise.
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