Mahabaleshwar

Mahabaleshwar is a small town and a municipal council in Satara district, Maharashtra, India. It is a place of pilgrimage for Hindus because the Krishna river has its origin here. The British colonial rulers developed the town as a hill station, and it served as the summer capital of Bombay Presidency during the British Raj.

Quotes

• Few scenes are more lovely than the beautiful Valley of the Krishna, as seen from the open Temples of Mahabuleshwar. The smooth and brightly gleaming waters, like a silvery thread, wind their quiet way between the richly wooded hills, which form a vista of fertile shelter to the grassy banks; while the herds, feeding peacefully beside the sacred river, complete the scene, and afford a glimpse of pastoral beauty, the more fair and sweet, perhaps, as contrasted with sublime mountain solitudes of the immediate neighbourhood…
• The walks and drives about the hills, are numerous and beautiful; long avenues, shaded by magnificent forest trees, afford noon-tide shelter, and permit the visitor the unusual and safe indulgence, of a mid-day stroll beneath their shade, while here and there an opening in the rich foliage, affords a glimpse of the superb mountain-scenery around, arresting the step in admiration of its sublime and varied wonders. Bold peaks, towering and cloud-capt Ghauts, sparkling cascades, hill-forts, deep straths, and wooded glens, blend their magnificent effects in a succession of rich and glowing pictures, more wondrous and more grand, than even Italy with her bold Alps and smiling Pyrenees, can charm the traveller’s eye withal. No snowy peaks, ‘tis true, blushing in the rays of the sun-lit sky, form backgrounds to the scene, but veils of fleecy vapour, with mazy indistinctness, shroud the towering scraps of the eternal hills, while the clear atmosphere around, permits the eye to revel in the full majesty of these stupendous scenes, revealing the sun-lit valleys and the quiet occupation of their peasants, as clearly as it does the dense jungle of the mountain side, crowded with its wild and savage denizens.
  • Marianne Postans, quoted in Jain, S., & Jain, M. (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. vol 4.