There is nothing in the Hindoos more absurd than the piety of Tiberius in offering up sacrifices in the temple, and before the image of Augustus; while he was solicited by all the great cities of the empire to suffer temples to be built and sacrifices to be made to himself while still living; or than Alexander’s attempt to make a goddess of his mother while yet alive, that he might feel the more secure of being made a god himself after his death.[10] In all religions there are points at which the professors declare that reason must stop, and cease to be a guide to faith.  The pious man thinks that all which he cannot comprehend or reconcile to reason in his own religion must be above it.  The superstitions of the people of India will diminish before the spread of science, art, and literature; and good works of history and fiction would, I think, make far greater havoc among these superstitions even than good works in any of the sciences, save the physical, such as astronomy, chemistry, &c.[11]

In the evening we went out with the intention of making an excursion of the lake, in boats that had been prepared for our reception by tying three or four fishing canoes together;[12] but, on reaching the ridge of quartz hills which runs along the south-east side, we preferred moving along its summit to entering the boats.  The prospect on either side of this ridge was truly beautiful.  A noble sheet of clear water, about four miles long by two broad, on our right; and on our left a no less noble sheet of rich wheat cultivation, irrigated from the lake by drains passing between small breaks in the ridges of the hills.  The Persian wheel is used to raise the water.[13] This sheet of rich cultivation is beautifully studded with mango groves and fields of sugar-cane.  The lake is almost double the size of that of Sagar, and the idea of its great utility for purposes of irrigation made it appear to me far more beautiful; but my little friend the Sarimant, who accompanied us in our walk, said that ’it could not be so handsome, since it had not a fine city and castle on two sides, and a fine Government house on the third’.

‘But’, said I, ‘no man’s field is watered from that lake.’

‘No’, replied he, ’but for every man that drinks of the waters of this, fifty drink of the waters of that; from that lake thirty thousand people get aram (comfort) every day.’

This lake is called Kewlas after Kewal Varmma, the Chandel prince by whom it was formed.[14] His palace, now in ruins, stood on the top of the ridge of rocks in a very beautiful situation.  From the summit, about eight miles to the west, we could see a still larger lake, called the Nandanvara Lake, extending under a similar range of quartz hills running parallel with that on which we stood.[15] That lake, we were told, answered upon a much larger scale the same admirable purpose of supplying water for the fields, and securing the people from the dreadful effects of droughts.