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Rh with venders of fruit, flowers, and turban ornaments. Processions of brilliantly clad people passed under the towered gate of the causeway and out over the path on the water; and, doubled in reflections, it all seemed too picturesque, too theatrical to be real. Only the north door of the temple is open to Europeans, but the bearded priests sitting in a gold and painted hall before a magnificently bound Granth, or sacred scriptures, over which the attendants waved brushes, received us kindly. Pigeons flew in and out the arched openings with their massive silver doors; the musicians pounded and blew; the priests sat chanting before the jeweled Granth, which is the object of adoration to the sect, and after we had made our offerings, threw jasmine wreaths over our shoulders and gave us fragrant oranges. The Sikh visitors worshipfully knelt, offering money, cowries, and flowers before the book, and, garlanded in return, were conducted with us to the upper chamber of the temple to see even richer wall decorations of mirrors and gilded fretwork. The place is so precious that it is swept and dusted only with peacock feathers. The silver doors of the temple stand open day and night, and the chanted services are continual, and on moonlight nights in summer this fairy floating temple must seem a dream. Only the chill of those wet felt slippers on that cold winter morning could have hurried us away from the enchanting place; but, sneezing and shivering violently, we fled, and although we spent two more days in Amritsar, we were content to view the temple from the terrace.