Sunia; A Himalayan Idyll, and Other Stories (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913. Excerpt: ... THE HEART OF A MAID PHASE THE FIRST DREAMING I "A maiden fair to see." The sun, a disk of deepening orange, hung low on the horizon. Black trees, and black rocks, stood out in crisp silhouette against a background of living fire; and the lake below them shone as a sheet of beaten gold. Here and there, in the foreground, amid angular rocks and massive curves of foliage, a cocoanut palm reared slim trunk and feathery head. Dulhari Lake, on such a night, is a vision that lingers long in the memory. A wide white road, traversing the near side of the lake, connects the military cantonment--clean, rectangular, and ugly--with the picturesque unsavoury mazes of the native city. Ignorance, dirt, and mystery on the one hand; on the other, enlightment, discipline, and pipeclay; and between them the great golden expanse of lake and sky. The road was empty save for one solitary figure standing before an artist's easel, whereon was set a small but masterly presentation of the vivid scene--a vigorous bit of workmanship scarcely in keeping with the fragile face of the girl who, in defiance of waning light, was adding the last deft touches to her picture. The sun dipped to a blazing semicircle; faint pink blushes crept over the higher clouds; and still she worked on, with young disregard for her eyesight. Suddenly she started, and stepped backward. Two brown faces were peering at her from behind the easel, and in her hasty movement she went near to treading on ten bare, brown toes. She was hemmed in on all sides. Eyes and faces everywhere; and all of one hue. Men, women, and children--the former draped in dun-coloured rags, the latter clad chiefly in the garment God had given them--pressed close, and closer, with eager eyes and busy tongues, of whose babble she understood...