VIEW FK0M THE FOET. 
211 
zaars are furnished with everything necessary to 
supply the domestic wants of the people, of whom 
many never descended to the plains. The walls 
and the precipices by which they were surrounded 
being the boundary of their little world, they lived 
in a sort of Utopian simplicity, circumscribed within 
the narrow limits of a few miles, beyond which 
they did not seem to have the slightest desire to 
emerge. To such primitive minds the happy valley 
would have been a paradise, though to Rasselas it 
was a prison. In truth, happiness is not a fugitive 
that is to be pursued with breathless impatience 
through a world of perplexity and care. It is as 
secure to the indolent cenobite as to the busy wan- 
derer; neither may obtain it, and it may visit the 
hermitage while it shuns the house of concourse. 
They generally know it best who seek it least; 
and certain it is that the little community of this ro- 
mantic hill, if they were not positively happy, ap- 
peared contented, and content is so nearly allied to 
happiness, that they form rather a distinction than a 
difference. 
The prospect around Rhotas Gur, viewed from the 
highest point about a mile south of the gateway, is 
of a truly sublime character ; scarcely anything can 
surpass it, except it be the wild and stupendous 
scenery of the Himalaya mountains. Here are pre- 
cipices several hundred feet deep, which it makes the 
brain whirl to look down, and they are so near the 
perpendicular, without a shrub to break the unifor- 
mity of their sheer rocky sides, that, until within a 
short distance from their termination, there is scarcely 
