268 SOME GARDEN CONTRASTS 



force. The pride of race and the immutable 

 nationahty of the Rajputs have combined, with 

 the isolation and strength of their rocky and 

 desert-bound country, to save Indian architecture 

 and its dependent crafts from extinction. 



But although " men come to build stately 

 sooner than to garden finely," and Bacon's choice 

 of the " greater perfection " is even more justified 

 in the East than it is in the West, the garden, 

 unfortunately, is the sooner altered and destroyed. 

 Wherever English influence has been strong, as 

 in British India and in the so-called " pro- 

 gressive " Native States, the typical Indian 

 gardens have been the first to go, and the old 

 symbolic garden-craft the first of all the tradi- 

 tional arts to disappear. 



In place of the stately water-ways and avenues, 

 the pergolas and gay parterres, the perfumed dusk 

 of the Hindu pleasure-grounds, and the sunshine 

 brilliance of the Mughal baghs, the incongruities 

 of the Anglo-Indian landscape gardener reign 

 supreme. It is easy enough to picture the 

 change : the exposed private garden, a con- 

 tradiction in its very terms ; the public parks with 

 their bare acres of unhappy-looking grass, their 

 ugly bandstands, hideous iron railings, and forlorn 



