46 FOOTFALLS OF INDIAN HISTORY
a city ? How long did it continue to be one ? What were the surroundings in the height of its glory of this abode of kings, now an austere and desolate ruin ? These and a thousand other questions crowd upon us, and it is strange to how many of them we can give an answer. The rush- ing rains of Indian summers have long washed away most of the soil from the hanging gardens that once clothed the hillsides, and made the prospect from the palace to the gates and beyond them through the pass leading out into the plains a veritable vision of delight.
But still the artificial terraces of red trap-rock are smooth and level amidst the out-cropping masses of natural crags, and still the wanderer may take his stand on some spot whence Bimbisara the king was wont to look upon the glories of his inheritance, or, with difficulty at one or two points, may trace the Wciy through the old pleas- ance by which doubtless royal hunting-parties may have started for the forest-glades. To-day, it is true, there are ne rich woodlands covering slopes and mountain-tops, as in the royal ages. Wild undergrowth, dense shrubs, and here and there a twisted palm growing in a cranny are all that can stand for the lofty timbers, dense aisles of the days when the place was a paradise, a king's garden surrounding a king's palace. And still at the back of the ruined city, guarding it from ^he passes on the south and east, we find the double walls of enormous thickness.
