CHENAR TREES 159 



foliaged sycamores with serrated leaves and 

 smooth, silvery boles and branches. They were, 

 and are, greatly prized for their size and beauty, 

 and more especially for their dense shade. Apart 

 from the garden avenues, chenars are often to 

 be seen in the villages and by the sides of the 

 old caravan roads. They are usually planted at 

 the four points of a square so as to shade a plot 

 of ground all day long, and thus formed a series 

 of halting-places between one camp and the next. 

 In Kashmir they still remain royal trees ; they are 

 Government property, not to be cut down with- 

 out a special permit from the Maharaja. Green 

 turf covers the ruined masonry terraces of the 

 Nisim Bagh, which rise grandly from the water ; 

 but the trees are in their prime, and the view 

 from under their boughs across the blue expanse 

 of the lake, crowned by the snow -streaked 

 Mahadev, remains as enchanting as when Akbar 

 chose this site for the first Mughal garden in 

 Kashmir. 



Between the Nisim and the Fort there is a 

 smaller lake, at the far end of which are the 

 remains of a picturesque garden called the 

 Nageen Bagh. What is left shows another lake- 

 side garden, smaller, but in character much like 



