Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924024153987).pdf/646

 ;

GOK

S68

ing the sacred mountains visited in the course of his travels by Shia Parshad, the raja of holy fame. In the middle of the lake is an island on which stands a thflkurdwara, constructed by the raja already named. Beside the thakurdw4ra there is a sacred well and the tombs of some members of the raja's family. The island is covered with foliage between the buildings. As you stand at the further end of the lake and look across the water, taking in the distant town screened by trees on your right, the winding path, the fantastic piles of bricks and plaster and the handsome building of the Anjuman on your left, the small island with its sacred buildings and fresh foliage before you rising out of the still water, and beyond them the lofty mango trees in the distance, you have a refreshing landscape in which art and nature combine to delight the eye wearied with the dry monotomy and flatness of the plains.

The road past the Sagar leads on to the civil lines and what were formerly the cantonr&ents. The only traces of the military occupation of this quarter now left are a few barracks which until last year were occupied as cutcheries, a church which has been reduced in size to suit the requirements of a small outlying civil station, a burial ground, a racquet court, On what was the parade ground now stands and the Government garden. the new cutchery, a handsome brick building, with accommodation and appointments perhaps th^ finest in any similar public building in Oudh. South of the cutchery is the jail, a large building on the standard radiating plan, which occupies an elevated site, is well drained and open to the fresh air. Barring the confinement, it is a most desirable place of residence. The

old burying ground has been

abandoned and a new one

laid out

nearer the native town.

The racquet court is carefully repaired from year to year, and is one of the best in the province. Beyond the racquet court on the north is the Government garden. This was the piiblic rendezvous in the days of the military occupation of Gonda, but was suffered to fall into great neglect This neglect continued for some years after the withdrawal of the troops. but the care and neatness with which the garden is now kept, as well as the taste with which it is laid out, make it one of the prettiest gardens in Oudh. The walks are laid out in curves and lead under the shade of tall trees and evergreen lawns. No cart-wheel beds, the cherished, and almost inevitable devices of Indian malis, here intrude as a protest against English gardening but an arbour standing on the site' of the bandstand of former days, covered with the brilliant Bougainvillia, and having before it a green lawn where plays a cooling fountain, recalls the gardens of the west. Vineries and fruit trees exclude the commonplace associations of the vegetable garden from the pleasure seekers' gaze, and two most magnificent lines of tall bamboo, the one on the south and the other on the west, shut out at an early hour of evening the rays of the declining sun.

on which Gonda stands was originally a jungle in the estate °^ *^® ra.jai.s of Khurasa, and the spot where the first habitations which became the centre of the town in after times were built was a fold in which Ahirs kept their cattle at night. This fold was constructed with stakes driven into the ground and

The

site

History.