60 AFOOT THROUGH THE 



leaving the regular track. It was useless to explain 

 I preferred the shorter way; they only shouted in 

 shriller tones, with the idea that I should understand 

 and turn back if only addressed with sufficient loudness. 

 So incomprehensive was it to them that any one could 

 prefer a direct route rather than the trodden way, I 

 concluded they must be nearly related to our own Mrs. 

 Grundy. Then one more grassy slope, and at last I 

 stood beside the temple that had haunted me for two 



A shadeless track 



years, ever since the sight of a photograph had revealed 

 to me the marvellous beauty of that lonely fane. Vague 

 details of its erection, disputes as to whether Ranaditya 

 King, its reputed founder, really built it, or whether he 

 lived in the fifth century, or three hundred years later 

 in the eighth; whether the side chapels were the work 

 of his queen, Amritaprakha ; and whether Laltaditya 

 added the arcade these things were all forgotten, or 



