Before Its Principal Gate Stretched A Beautiful Lake Of About
Fifteen Miles Circumference (Now Only Nine).
The approach to this
gate was by a broad road, upon the top of a stone causeway, of
between two and three miles in length, which formed a massive dam
to the waters of the lake which washed its base.
To the right of
this dam stretched many miles of cultivation; to the left, on the
farther shores of the lake, lay park-like grass-lands, studded
with forest trees, some of whose mighty descendants still exist
in the noble "tamarind," rising above all others. Let us return
in imagination to Pollanarua as it once stood. Having arrived
upon the causeway in the approach to the city, the scene must
have been beautiful in the extreme: the silvery lake, like a
broad mirror, in the midst of a tropical park; the flowering
trees shadowing its waters; the groves of tamarinds sheltering
its many nooks and bays; the gorgeous blossoms of the pink lotus
resting on its glassy surface; and the carpet-like glades of
verdant pasturage, stretching far away upon the opposite shores,
covered with countless elephants, tamed to complete obedience.
Then on the right, below the massive granite steps which form the
causeway, the water rushing from the sluice carries fertility
among a thousand fields, and countless laborers and cattle till
the ground: the sturdy buffaloes straining at the plough, the
women, laden with golden sheaves of corn and baskets of fruit,
crowding along the palm-shaded road winding toward the city, from
whose gate a countless throng are passing and returning.
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