132 GARDENS OF THE PLAINS— LAHORE 



which once shaded the road-weary pilgrims have 

 gone. 



Bold repetition and breadth of treatment lend, 

 as we have seen, a wonderful fascination, a grand, 

 serene, and peaceful dignity to Indian garden- 

 craft. But these vast gardens of the plains when 

 bereft, as so many of them are, of their flowers, 

 trees, and water, the edges of their raised stone 

 walks and platforms left sharp and hard — casting 

 long unbroken shadows in the blazing sunshine — 

 easily degenerate into a tiresome, soulless for- 

 mality, a tedious reiteration of bare lines. The 

 very lines which, as Ruskin points out, when 

 partly clothed, by their contrast form the best 

 foil to the grace of natural curves in plant and 

 foliage and heighten the enjoyment of the wild 

 luxuriant vegetation — the rapid growth which 

 shoots up after the first summer rains, the dancing 

 sway of flowering twigs and the coloured foam of 

 the creepers as they fall in cascades down the 

 trees. 



That monotony was the special danger of the 

 Mughal as of other classic styles, was clearly 

 recognised by its designers, and in great char- 

 baghs — literally, four gardens — like Shah-Dara 

 the four main divisions of the grounds were 



