220 HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



and pretty gardens, and beyond them, like a protecting 

 rampart, rises the long line of the Lower Himalaya. 



The especial charm of the town is its smallness and 

 extreme neatness. Both the town and environs, the 

 houses, the streets and canal, the parade ground, and 

 the English gardens and residences have something 

 of the prettiness of a miniature or a model. The 

 impression of smallness is heightened by the vastness 

 of the mountains beneath which the little town seems 

 to nestle for protection. 



Bright and pretty as are the houses of Dehra, there 

 is only one building in the town that has any pre- 

 tension to architectural beauty, and this one building 

 is the tomb of Gooroo ; it is a building of no great 

 size, and of the ordinary form of Indian mausoleum ; 

 that is, it consists of a square block placed on a terrace 

 and surmounted by a dome. The block contains a single 

 vaulted chamber, and on the pavement of the chamber 

 rests the monument beneath which the ashes of the 

 saint repose. In the plains of India the building 

 would attract but little attention, but situated in this 

 secluded valley, it becomes an object of interest ; also, 

 being surrounded only by the smallest of edifices, it 

 gives to the beholder by contrast a certain impression 

 of size and grandeur. 



The first time that I visited the tomb was many 

 years ago, when I was in charge of the Doon. The 

 garden that surrounds the tomb is enclosed by a high 

 brick wall ; the principal gateway faces the east, but 

 there is a small doorway on the northern side : this 

 doorway opens on a bare, dusty space where native 



