Trees, Tibetans, and the Telegraph 129
The Christian looks through such symbolic lights and sees the suffering martyr, save where Rome, in substitution, answering the heart's cry for beauty and for love, has set Mary's beatific face ; then, above, he sees the radiance of the risen Saviour who beckons to Him, to the self, and smiles a welcome to that self in its eternal individuality. How should the souls of men be gloriously tried if each might meditate quiet hours ; first in a noble cathedral, with its via crucis, its saints, its woman-god, its Christ crucified and triumphant ; passing thence to a nearby temple, where the silent, brooding peace of the Buddha might be contemplated while time and self slip unnoticed by ; then, moving the body but a stone's throw, entering a lofty mosque, untenanted by statue or by picture, unfurnished save by the Koran on a reading-desk, empty save of the felt presence of the only God. This was an insistent thought as we wandered through the sanctuaries on the high hill at Leh. At my side one, a priest of Christ ; another, reverential before the Buddha's altar which he daily tended ; and, waiting at the door, faithful Lassoo, looking toward Mecca as the sun sank behind the Himalayas.
The king's palace, a rambling, uneven, dark but imposing structure, is now unpeopled. Across the Indus, yonder a dozen miles away, lives the illustrious, once royal, family, poor but honest. Power has gone to the Dogra, and his power in turn has become but a mirage, floating at the pleasure of the British sun. One of the passions of kings all the world over (this does not include Napoleon) seems to be that for private chapels. Our Ladaki monarch
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