Lake Chapala glistens in the early morning sun. A dripping sack of chacales over his shoulder, a stout fisherman emerges from the jumble of sharp-prowed, wide-sterned, flat-bottomed canoas, and bounces along the floating wooden walkway.

The jetty and little lighthouse are much farther from the water’s edge today than in 1923, when D.H. Lawrence watched the físhermen of his day throw out their nets for the “tiny, silvery fish flicking out of the brown water like splinters of glass.”

As long ago as the eighteenth century, the wells had dried up around the great city of Guadalajara 40 miles to the north. But extraction from Mexico’s largest lake has only proved a problem for the last eight years or so. In May, the lake may seem a mile away, though after the rains in September, it sometimes laps the lighthouse. Amazingly, despite this manmade drought, ten kinds of fish still thrive in its waters. The fish may not much like the extended shallows and muddy shore, though the birds clearly do. Wildfowl, gulls and waders dot the surface. Wintering Canada geese break their journey south. Swallows swoop. White egretes perch precariously among the water hyacinths.

Lawrence saw ‘clouds’ of wild duck, grebes, and ‘glittering’ gulls of the inland seas. ‘Dark birds, their necks pushed out, skimmed silently on the surface. Waterfowl went swimmíng into the reeds, or rose on wing and wheeled into the blue air.’

With back against a ‘fleecy green’ willow that ‘hung its curtains of pale green fronds’ on the beach, the Nottingham novelist sat and wrote. He contemplated ‘the lovely fawn-colored’ water and the changing light effects on the surrounding hills, which rose up to ‘high, blunt points, baked dry like a biscuit, bluish in the distance.’

Chapala was the setting for an ambitious novel in which descriptions of man and nature assumed cosmic proportions. The Englishman created the vision of an alternative set of religious and social values for modern Mexicans, drawing on the contemporary atmosphere of political unrest.

Mexico was then, after all, a country of ‘bandits and Bolshevists,’ in fact the eastern end of the lake really was the scene of a revolutionary battle. Raiding the Aztec pantheon, Lawrence resurrected the myth of Quetzalcoatl, or literally his plumed serpent of the title of his novel, in order to summon in a new golden age of peace and plenty. The ancient god rose from the lake--which figured as a holy place in the earliest Franciscan records--and took human form in the shape of the charismatic landowner, ‘Ramon.’

The bearded Briton found a home for his Irish heroine in his own ‘stone, cool, dark’ house on a quiet side street near the lake--‘a low, L-shaped tiled building with rough red floors.’ The deep shady veranda, where he would pad about barefoot still looks out to ‘the brilliant sun, the still water, the sparkling flowers, the yellowing banana trees and the dark splendor of the shadow-dense mango trees.’

Today, behind a heavy wooden door set into a 12-foot stone wall, the villa is a designer B&B, with nine suites and a long, elegant airy dining room. Manager José Romero caters attentively to the needs of the American guests, attracted like the earlier resident was by the healthy mountain climate.

From here, Kate (Lawrence’s heroine) would walk the short distance to the quay to be rowed up the ‘dun-colored’ lake toward the hero’s castellated mansion. The shore is lined with grand villas in foliage and flowers, sporting such resonant names as Braniff and Ferrara. The church, with white dome and fluted towers tapering into golden spires, still `holds up its two fingers in mockery’ through `shaggy mops of palm trees side by side on their thin stems.’

Walking up to the beach, I, too, am able to admire the ‘splashes of color like fireworks . . . the trees in lakefront gardens had flamed into scarlet and poured themselves out into lavender flowers - blazing scarlet blossoms, hanging magenta curtains of bougainvillaea, abundance of oleander trees, red dots of hibiscus, pink poinsettias with huge scarlet petal leaves, pale splaying plumbagos and loose creamy-colored roses.’

Back in town, author and character mingled with the throng of ‘white-clad, big-hatted men’ circulating slowly in ‘the sun-eaten’ square, ‘sauntering the day away.’ Now, as then, ‘white specks of villages on the far slopes’ artisans come to sell such handicrafts as lacquer wooden bowls and glazed pottery. But there are surely fewer bandits these days from those wild places.

The food market has moved under cover. Otherwise, not much has changed. The piles of ‘dark green, globular water melons, little pumpkins, red tomatoes, tiny green and yellow lemons, orange red and greenish mangoes, sweet potatoes and pure white onions are delivered more prosaically by truck rather than by boat.

My visit coincides with carnival - ten days of bulls, ballet, beer and brass bands. In the park, families munch tacos and spit-grilled chicken or pork at little tables under striped awnings. On stage, just like in the novel, the men dance ‘erect, handsome, balancing their great hats on their heads’ with ‘slim girls, their naked arms linked together, so light in their gauzy, scarlet, white, blue and orange dresses, pretty as rather papery flowers.’

Heading west in the bus along the lakeside road, I stop at the American artists’ colony of Ajijic. Away from the quiet leafy square, the narrow cobbled streets are crammed with colorful cafes and craft shops. At San Juan de Cosala, I find ‘the deserted silence of a mud-brick village.’ A cobbled avenue below overhanging trees entices me down to the water. I sit by some lonely little boats, which glow red in the late sunshine. The sun slowly disappears ‘in a thick, rose-red fume behind the wavy ridge of the mountains.’

Like Lawrence and Kate, I watch the sunset arrive ‘with a strange flare of crystal yellow light over the soundless stillness of the dark lake.’