CHAPTER V 



GARDENS OF THE PLAINS — DELHI 



If there is a Paradise on Earth, it is Here, it is Here. 



Sadi. 



Not only the Nightingale in the Rose-bushes sings his hymn 



of praise. 

 But every Thorn is itself a voice of adoration to the Deity. 



Sadi. 



A STRANGE fascination, the very spirit of the 

 age-long capital of India, hovers over the wide, 

 rolling campagna, the sandy fields and thorny 

 scrub, the gaunt brown domes of ruined tombs, 

 the half-submerged mosques, forts, and palaces, 

 which lie between the Jumna river-bed and the 

 red sunbaked rocks of the famous Ridge which 

 runs from Ajmeer northward until it dies away 

 beyond the plains of Delhi. 



No other capital can boast of so long con- 

 tinued a history beginning with King Yudisthara, 

 the central hero of the Mahabharata, whose city, 

 now known as Purana Kila (the Old Fort), 



91 



