CHAPTER XIX.

GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA.

_Friday, January 30th._--Left Agra at 7.30 on our way to Gwalior.

After crossing the Chumbla on one of the finest bridges in India, we came to a very strange bit of country. Every foot of the bare ground was gulched, upturned, upheaved, into conical mounds. We saw a quantity of curious little sugar-loaf cones, apparently of natural origin, and the whole represents a series of miniature valleys and mountains. This broken ground alone would form a formidable obstacle to the enemy's approach to Gwalior, without its celebrated fort.

Long before we reached Gwalior we saw the great ridge of rock some two miles in length, though only one in width, which rises up out of the plain. It is the Gibraltar of India, and, standing out of the plain instead of out of the sea, was called, before modern cannon brought the fort within range of neighbouring heights, the key of Hindustan. It is a grand rampart of nature, and the range of fortress walls which crown the summit well become the site. They frown down upon the palace of Sindhia himself, lying immediately underneath, in mockery guarding his territory, for though the maharajah's standard floats from the flagstaff, British soldiers occupy the stronghold.[7]

Sir Lepel Griffin, the Governor-General's agent to the princes of Central India, was on his annual tour, and in camp at Morar, the adjacent military station. He had asked us to stay with him at Indore, Holkar's capital, where he is permanently located, and now offered us the hospitality of his camp. But all our ideas of having to rough it melted before the Oriental luxury of the temporary town.

We drove through a neat "street" of tents, and were set down before a handsome pavilion. This was the entrance-hall with visitors' book, and where the scarlet-clad chuprassies are in constant attendance. Through this we passed into a drawing-room lined with brocade, thickly carpeted with rugs, full of easy-chairs and of tables covered with photographs, books, newspapers, flowers, &c. An anteroom, again, leads into the dining-room. The tents for the remainder of the party are ranged on either side of the pavilion.

Here we are in far greater luxury than in any Indian hotel, and save for the supporting-pole in the centre, and the pebbles crunching under the carpet, we might think ourselves in a comfortable room. All around there are the cheerful sounds of camp-life, the chattering of servants, the stamping of the picketed horses, or the whistling proceeding from your opposite neighbour's tent. Some officers of the regiment are playing polo in the adjoining ground, and their horses' feet resound as they scamper about on the hard earth.

All commissioners and collectors have to camp out for one or two months in the year on their tours of inspection, and so it comes to be quite a feature of Indian life. The rule then is for one set of tents to be sent on in advance over night. The _réveillé_ is sounded at 5 a.m., or some such early hour, and the ten miles' march is accomplished before the heat of the day, and they sit down to breakfast on the new camping-ground, with the tents ready pitched. Not the least wonderful part of the camp is the kitchen. Everything is cooked out in the open, and there is but one tent for the culinary department. There are one or two mud ovens and holes in the ground filled with charcoal, and with this and a very few pots and pans a native cook manages to turn out a most elegant dinner for eighteen. Rarely, if ever, are the dishes or sauces smoked, even when a contrary wind is blowing.

We went to a small tennis party in the evening, and returning home along the "Mall," Sir Lepel stopped and took us into the club, where there is one room set aside for the use of the ladies. It is a most popular institution, and prevails at many of the stations. The ladies walk down here in the evening before dinner, and have a gossip, or read the papers, whilst their husbands are playing billiards in an adjoining room.

This reminds me also of another, but a very different kind of club,--the "Mutton Club," which exists at most stations. There are few butchers in India, as none are called for among the Hindu population. So the ladies on a station frequently join together and keep their own flock of sheep and a shepherd, which supplies them with meat twice a week, and they take it in turns for the prime joints. Some energetic member of the community keeps the accounts and collects the subscriptions.

There was a dinner party in the evening, and during dinner the band of the native infantry regiment, the Duke of Connaught's Own, played outside the tent, and afterwards conjurors performed some well-known Indian tricks. It strikes you as curious at first, when you step out of your tent into the moonlight in full evening dress, and walk across to the pavilion to dinner, to see the guests arriving up the "street," which looks so pretty with its row of lamps.

_Saturday, January 31st. In camp at Gwalior._--Awoke at 7 a.m. to the merry noises of an awakening camp--bugles braying, horses neighing, a band playing in the distance, soldiers parading on the plain near by under their officers' shouts of command, and gongs sounding at intervals from all sides.

It was very chilly work turning out, for in the early morning and late at night the cold in the tents is intense.

At eight o'clock we started, muffled up in winter wraps, yet shivering much, and drove to the bottom of the Gwalior hill. Here we found one of the Maharajah's elephants waiting to take us up the very steep climb to the fort, which it is impossible to ascend in a carriage. Those who have been on an elephant know well the first sensation of fright that comes with the acute angle, as the beast raises himself on his hind-legs, when his fore-legs bring us to a level; and then we seem to be on a height which is dwarfing to all below us. The motion is a painfully uneven one, to which you never seem able to find a corresponding one for your body, and the howdah becomes anything but a comfortable seat, however pleased you may be at first with the novelty of the situation. I think the mahout, with his two-pronged fork, sitting astride the elephant's neck, and guiding him by the pressure of his knees under the flopping ears, has the more comfortable position of the two.

"The Little Fairy," as the elephant was poetically and inappropriately termed, was very slow, and our progress proportionally tedious. Our party must have presented a very picturesque appearance, as perched aloft on the red and yellow trappings of the howdah, our bell sounding out melodiously with the deliberate swaying walk of the elephant, we wound up under the walls of the old fort.

The strength of the position is marvellous, and we do not wonder that the chiefs of India would hardly believe when told that it had fallen into our hands, a little more than a century ago.

We passed through two gateways, and then were beneath the castellated walls, where under the protection of each battlement is a row of glazed tiles of bright colours, in blue and green. One wonders how the decoration, so strangely out of place, ever came there, and in other parts of the fort it appears again. In one place, yellow geese are represented by these means, walking in single file along the length of a wall.

The whole of this narrow ridge is taken up with cantonments and barracks laid in parallel lines on its perfectly flat surface. It is so narrow that passing along the road in the centre you can almost see down on to the plain immediately below on either hand.

One beautiful bit of antiquity still remains inside the fort in a wonderful Hindu temple, surrounded by a museum of ancient outdoor monuments, stone mummies, Jain idols, and monstrosities of hydra-headed beasts, looking at each other from over a pillar. The temple is very high, square, and narrow--a peculiar kind of formation, and unlike most Hindu temples, which taper towards the top. It is built of small stones, which seem to form Gothic arches in out-of-the-way corners, and the whole temple presents an intricate mass of irregularities. To finish all, it is covered in at the top by a modern addition, a huge white stone semicircular roof, ending squarely, and looking entirely like a huge sarcophagus.

As we passed the parade ground we saw the general reviewing a body of troops. The tramp of their feet, and their regular lines, with bayonets gleaming in the morning sun, was a cheerful sight.

The views from the fort are magnificent. There is old Gwalior lying away among its sprinkling of trees, with the open space where the large square of buildings shows the Maharajah's palace and gardens. The mud huts of the large village of Lashkar, the city proper of Gwalior, is at our feet, and away to the left is the defile of the Urwai Gorge, whose summit, on a level with the fort, is the only weak point in the defences.

We had breakfast on returning at eleven o'clock, a very usual hour, when chota hazri supplies all earlier wants, and from 12 p.m. a string of callers were coming and going. The Indian etiquette requires calls to be paid between the hottest hours of the day, from 12 till 2 p.m.

A combat of animals had been organized for that afternoon for us. The natives squatting round formed a bright ring of colour, and somewhat against our will we were obliged to witness a typical Indian entertainment.

Some cocks were the first to appear on the arena, but, save one couple, were not at all "game." Then some little partridges were brought, loudly calling challenges to each other from their wicker cages; but when brought face to face they only showed us a succession of clever dodgings. They were followed by a pair of bul-buls, those fluffy-headed bullfinches whom we hear chirping in the trees in the evening with such a deafening noise. But the rams showed the best fight. Let fly from opposite ends of the circle, they met in the centre with tremendous force, the repeated dull thud of their horns echoing for days after in our ears. Provided that they meet with their heads well down, it is their horns that have the full force of the concussion, and it does not hurt them. A white ram was produced, which was held back with difficulty, springing and showing fight to all the rams that came near him. He proved too strong and heavy for all the others, and they fled in terror before him, and could hardly be persuaded to meet him. Then he would take a mean advantage of their retreat and go after them, butting at their backs and sides, and turning them contemptuously over.

We saw a snake pitted against a mongoose, but, curiously enough, little fury as the mongoose is, he refused to touch the very handsome spotted snake, and retreated at every hiss. The second and smaller one, however, he succeeded in apparently killing, flattening his neck, till blood poured out of his mouth. This was the signal for a wonderful exhibition. The man declared he could bring the snake to life again, and, making a hole in the earth, he laid the head in, and poured water on it. The effect was magical; the neck stiffened and moved, and gradually the serpent reared its head. Then the cure was completed by the sweet dirge-like music charming the snake, and making it wave its head in time, intently following each undulation--unconscious of all save the magic music.

A buffalo-fight was tried in another part of the camp, but it was evident that they, in common with the other animals, had no natural animosity for one another.

Later in the afternoon we went to the cantonment to see some tent-pegging by the Fourth Bengal Native Cavalry. This was a very different kind of tent-pegging to any performance of the kind that you see at the Agricultural Hall at Islington. Here the men were on a large open space, and flew by at full speed with a wild rush, balancing the long spear low, and carrying off the tiny peg (almost lost in such a space) by piercing it through.

The dress of the native cavalry is splendid: scarlet coats, or more crimson perhaps, with blue and white striped turbans; white that of the infantry is buff with dark-blue turbans and facings. We walked through the cavalry lines of horse pickets, and the horses of this regiment are exceptionally fine, either "country-bred" or "Australians." Each man is obliged to keep a grass-cutter for his horse, and a pony or mule is shared by two, which goes out in the early morning and returns to camp at night with the next day's load of grass.

We drove home through the bazaar, which is considered almost the model bazaar of India. It is hardly credible what order and brightness by whitewashing and a uniformity of red-striped blinds has been introduced by the encouragement of Brigadier-General Massey, of Crimean fame, when he commanded here. A great deal of the native-carved woodwork has been used with great effect in balconies and over gateways, particularly in that of the "serai," or the house of hospitality for native travellers, which you find in all villages.

We drove out to dinner by moonlight that evening in an open carriage, the usual way at "mofussil" stations, where a close carriage is so rarely wanted. The word "mo_fussil_" sounded so funny to me at first, but it is very expressive of the station and up-country life of India.

_Sunday, February 1st._--To church in the morning. The scarlet of the infantry in the nave, and the blue of the artillery lining the transepts, made a very effective addition to the congregation. The choir was formed of soldiers, and accompanied by a brass band.

Captain Robertson, First Assistant to the Agent, showed us to-day a kharita, or a letter to a native prince. The paper is specially made for this purpose, and is sprinkled with gold leaf. Only the last few lines of the somewhat lengthy document contain the purport of the letter, while the remainder is made up of the usual roundabout and complimentary phrases. It is folded in a peculiar way, with the flaps outwards, and inserted into a muslin bag, and this latter into one of crimson and gold tint, with a slip-knot of gold thread, attached to which is a ponderous seal. The superscription and address on a slip of paper is passed into the bag between this latter and the muslin one. I have given these details in full, because they are important to Indian epistolary art, as, should any of them be omitted, it would be thought that an insult had been offered to the person addressed.

It may not be generally known that the native States still extant in India are 800, though out of them only 200 are of any importance. The Nizam of Hyderabad, the Maharajahs Sindhia and Holkar, each have an income of over a million sterling a year; and the kingdom of the first named is as large as Italy. This gives us some idea of the importance and power which still remains in the hands of the native princes--added to which, many of them maintain their own army, consisting of several regiments. This is the Maharajah Sindhia's great pride--the strength and efficiency of his army; and we were so sorry to have come a few days too late to see the review which he had just held, when he commanded his troops in person, and also to have missed the durbar, when his Highness was received in state by Sir Lepel. Since then he has been laid up with fever, and we were, therefore, unable to see him or his palace which contains one of the finest durbar-halls in India.

We left the camp at daybreak the next morning, and this will ever be remembered as the coldest and most disagreeable of our many early morning starts, collecting our things, and leaving as we did in the dark. We returned to Agra for the third and last time, where we spent the night. Again all the next day we were travelling on the Rajpootana State Railway to Jeypore, which we reached at six in the evening.

The country around Jeypore is of that peculiar formation which presents a flat plain of untold limits, interrupted at frequent intervals by conical-shaped hills that often attain to the height of mountains. Surrounded by a semicircle of these mountains, lying in the hollow of their midst, is Jeypore.

The white walls and towers of the great Tiger Fort, accessible only from this one side, stands guard over the city. Beneath it, on the rocks, has been painted in gigantic letters the one word "Welcome," inscribed there for the visit of the Prince of Wales.

Jeypore, the city of victory, as its name implies, is considered the model city of a native State, and it also carries off the palm for picturesqueness amongst all those artist-loved cities of India.

The native quarter, surrounded by a wall, forms a city within the city. The broad streets of its bazaar are wider and different to anything of the kind that we have seen before. The low shops are surmounted by a trellis carving, uniform throughout the long street, and all are coloured that soft Eastern pink, deep enough here to be a terra-cotta colour. The square market-place, with its marble fountain in the centre, and flocks of pigeons, looks like some old Italian piazza, and the story is told that it was built to please the Italian love of one of the Maharajahs of Jeypore. In keeping with the cleanliness and the air of brightness that generally pervades Jeypore, are the painted horns in red and green of the bullocks, the spirited and caparisoned horses of the Maharajah's attendants and messengers, and the bullock-carts and smartly curtained ekkas, with their magnificent yokes of trotting-bullocks. A more than ordinarily large number of sacred bulls seem to be lying or wandering about the streets. There is the unusual sight of familiar rows of lamp-posts once more, for Jeypore is the only city of a native State that is lighted with gas, and presently we pass the smoky chimney of "His Highness the Maharajah's Gasworks," as the inscription over the gate tells us. It is the late Maharajah who has made Jeypore what it is.

Jeypore seems too more advanced in art, education, and culture, looking at its school of art, where the native manufactures of pottery are sold, the public library in the square, and the museum. This latter is formed by the specimens of native manufactures, such as kincob, Benares and Moorshabad work, Multan and other potteries, exhibited at the Jeypore Exhibition two years ago, and which owes its origin and tasteful arrangement chiefly to Dr. Hendley, the Civil Surgeon.

At the end of a long street is the "Palace of the Moon," which is attractive from its name, but not from anything in its interior. There are the usual ranges of courtyards, and two durbar-halls, gaudy in the extreme, of a glaring mural decoration of flowers and fruit. We were taken to the bottom of the garden, which commands a fine view of the Tiger Fort, and were rather disgusted to find it was only to see a billiard-room in the pavilion. The zenana, a palace in buff and blue, in the form of a roof of terraces ascending and diminishing towards the gold moon at the summit, is the prettiest thing about the Palace of the Moon. Adjoining is the large courtyard with the tower in the centre, round which the maharajah's 300 horses are stabled.

Facing the palace at the other end of the long street is a cage, where seven magnificent tigers are kept for the amusement of the public. Bars not as thick as the little finger are alone between us and these ferocious animals. They crouch and glower in the furthermost corner, and then spring forward as the keeper approaches, with a wild roar that re-echoes down the street, making the cage quiver with its reverberation. The grandest tiger of all alone has double bars, having once broken two with a forward spring.

Then we drove to the "Palace of the Winds," a charmingly poetic name, in keeping and resembling the fantastic façade in pink and white. A series of little turrets, with trellis-work windows filled in with green gratings, allow of the wind passing freely through. The palace ends with a succession of steps, each one being crowned with a flag on a golden staff, till they meet in the crowning step, the keystone of the façade. It stands at the top of a hill, and is used as a summer residence. There is nothing to see inside; the whole idea has been exhausted on the exterior.

The history of the present Maharajah of Jeypore is somewhat romantic. Formerly living in exile on an allowance of 1_l._ per month, he one day found himself raised to the throne and the possessor of an income of half a million sterling. His predecessor only settled the succession three hours previous to his death, a usual custom among these Eastern potentates, on account of the fear of poison from a rival for favour, and out of some hundred relatives with equal claims, to the surprise of all, he chose the present one, who is now only twenty-three years of age. In addition to the annual income there was found in the treasury half a million sterling in solid silver, which took Dr. Hendley twenty-three days to count over.

It has been our usual fate throughout our Indian travels to find commissioners and officials of all sorts away in camp on their inspections, which have to be got through just after the cold weather and before the advent of the hot; maharajahs and rajahs have been absent on pilgrimages or a visit of welcome to Lord Dufferin.

So it is in the present instance. The Maharajah is at Calcutta, performing this duty; and it will be remembered that Sindhia was ill, the Maharajah of Benares returning the day after we left Benares, and later on we were destined similarly to miss seeing the Nizam of Hyderabad.

In the afternoon by special arrangement Miss Joyce, the lady superintendent of the girls' school, kindly took me to see a zenana, in fulfilment of my great wish. There had been a death amongst the rajputs or great nobles at Jeypore--that of a promising young lad, educated at Mayo College--and the elder ladies had gone to pay a visit of condolence to the family, and during their absence the younger ones were not permitted to receive; added to which, until the twelfth day was over, mourning or very plain dress would be _de rigueur_.

It was not in ancient days the custom for the Hindu women to be kept in the zenana, or to be "in purdah" (literally behind the curtain). The Hindus first began to adopt the plan after the Mohammedan invasion in imitation of their harem, and now all the castes keep the women in purdah, save those only of the very poor class who cannot afford it.

The house we went to was that of Sri Lachman Dat, the high priest of the Court. We were received in a small room on the ground floor of the palace, which, in true oriental fashion, was so much out of repair as to be tumbling down. This room was soon crowded with the brothers, sons, sons-in-law, and the numerous poor relations who are always hangers-on in the house of their richer kin. Altogether they were a family of fifty, and with over 100 servants it brought up this one household to 150 persons, who all found shelter in the palace. Miss Joyce acted as interpreter, and a desultory conversation was maintained. The priest inquired our names, and C. handed him a visiting-card, whereupon he called for paper and pen, and had his name written by his chaplain in exact imitation. The shastri said "that there were several members of his family ill, but that our visit was better than any doctor's, and would make them well," &c., &c.

At last a move was made, and the room cleared, the shutters closed, and C. taken away. When he had been deposited on the roof of the house by the gentlemen of the family--a position where he would be sure to be well out of sight, one after another, the ladies slipped in to us. They were all dusky, dark-eyed girls, some beautiful and others that would have been so with their lustrous eyes, but for coarse lips and thick noses. You would almost think they had arranged their dresses so as to form a pleasing contrast, for one was dressed in pale-yellow with silver, the other in orange with scarlet, and another in pink and gold--gorgeous gowns they were, with the most extensive skirts. Miss Joyce pulled one of them out for me to see, and they are so finely gathered that an infinity of yards of stuff are compressed into one breadth, and this makes them project, at the bottom, and swing like a crinoline. All wore the sari over the head, completely covering the neck and shoulders, and the short-sleeved bodice underneath, which just crosses the breast and nothing more. They were laden with ornaments, and only too delighted to take off each one separately to show me--their bead necklaces with gold fringes, their amulets, their bangles on the ankles, the arms, and above the elbow; their earrings, two inches long, weighed down with gold tassels; their nose-rings, as large as a bangle-ring, and which one took out of her cartilage, allowing that it hurt her. Their feet gave the appearance of being covered with a silver toe-piece, so massive were the rings and ornaments on each toe. The rings for their hands were made joined, for two fingers to pass through at once. Families of children and babies were brought and gathered into the room by degrees with their attendants, who are treated quite on an equality, and it was becoming very crowded when an adjournment was suggested by Miss Joyce.

We were each taken by the hand, and led upstairs to the zenana apartments; here the rooms were small, but very neat and clean. The floors were all wadded, and covered with linen, to enable them to sit comfortably cross-legged on it. There were a few pictures on the wall, and they showed me a common cottage clock in a corner, which they evidently considered most curious, and of priceless value. They took me into their sleeping apartments, and made me sit down on their bed, lifting up the curtains and showing me their curious little cheek pillows laid against the bolster. And then they went up some narrow flights of stairs, and passed a courtyard being repaired, whence the men had been carefully cleared by the eunuch, and only fled when warned of C.'s existence on the top of the roof!

All this time left alone, he had been carrying on a conversation by means of animated signs, and they had been examining his watch, hat, and gloves with interest. In descending we were shown the Dunbar hall, and one of the living rooms--such a bare, dirty dungeon.

On returning to the room the usual ceremony was gone through of the presentation of baskets of fruit; the garland of flowers being thrown over our heads, and the sticky paste of sandal-wood and otto of roses smeared on the hands by the host, and returned by the guest.

The zenana women are allowed very occasionally to drive out in a gharry with the shutters closed, and with muslin again hung before these, but none of the servants or men of the household are even then allowed to see them, save those only they have brought from their father's house. It takes a long time before a chief can be persuaded to allow his zenana to be visited by a European lady, and the present Maharajah refused entrance to his zenana to the Duchess of Connaught, because several of the other rajput maharajahs have not allowed their zenanas to be seen by any European woman.

Here then, I say, is the opportunity for the lady doctors of England. When tired of struggling against the blind prejudice that continues to bar their way to advancement at home, here is the wide field of usefulness, the work of charity for their suffering and imprisoned sex--these poor zenana women.[8] When the European doctor is called in (and it is only in very bad cases) he feels the pulse of the patient through the purdah, or sometimes through three or four. The women suffer terribly, and die from the want of ordinary skill and care, particularly in their confinements, when no doctor can be called in.

We visited the Raj school, established for girls, and which corresponds to that of the college for boys. Miss Joyce has enrolled on her books pupils who are classed as follows, "Unmarried, married, or widows!" The Hindu girls are married as early as ten years of age. The education is supposed to be entirely secular, but she has a class for religious instruction--a Sunday-school at her bungalow on Sunday.

We drove home through the Zoological Gardens, which are extremely pretty and well laid-out. At their entrance is the Mayo Hospital, dedicated to Lord Mayo by the late Maharajah, who was his personal friend, and further on is the Albert Hall, or Town Hall, the memorial of the Prince of Wales' visit. Jeypore is celebrated for its marble quarries, of which so many of the beautiful buildings in India are built, notably the Taj.

We left Jeypore that evening, and arrived at Ajmere at the inconvenient hour of midnight. This did not prevent Major Loch, the Principal of the Mayo College, in his kindness, coming to meet us at the station, and driving us to his abode inside the grounds. He has a most charming "_house_," for bungalow it cannot be called, as it possesses the remarkable feature for India of a staircase.

Mayo College was founded by the late Lord Mayo for the education of the sons of rajahs. It was a grand and statesmanlike idea, this scheme for the education of the native ruler, under the immediate guidance of English master minds, thereby engendering a patriotism and attachment to England as a mother country, raising and elevating the tone and domestic life of the native prince, who in his turn was being prepared to wield power humanely, and make the influence of his bringing up felt on those around him. It was the stone dropped in the pool, with ever-widening and concentric influence.

The College is very happily situated under the lee of an amphitheatre of hills, that rise, like all those in this part of the country, sheer out of the plain. It is a very charming feature of the College, the ten houses, of such very varied architecture and style, that lie about the compound, for each state has built and endowed its own college, for the use of the sons of its nobles. There has been a certain amount of rivalry exhibited in their erection. Some have marble cupolas, others arches, and others towers; some are of pure white marble, others a mixture of white and red stone; all are tasteful and uncommon. In the centre, and holding them together as a mother university, is the College Hall, with its clock tower, entirely built of white marble, but rough hewn and unpolished. In the centre hall stands the statue of Lord Mayo; the class-rooms lie around it. The white, green, pink, and black marbles used for the decorations of the hall are all quarried within a radius of fifteen miles around Ajmere.

These colleges are really boarding-houses, where each prince brings his own establishment of servants. One lately admitted, brought twenty-two retainers, which, with some difficulty, Major Loch reduced to eleven. They ride, play cricket, tennis, and football, and are encouraged to be as European in manners and habits as possible. With all this Major Loch does not approve or encourage their being sent to England when their education is complete, as they return impressed with a sense of their own importance; of the number of their servants, their jewels, their state and magnificence compared to that of the same class in England. The native states represented by their colleges at Ajmere are as follows:--Jeypore, Alwar, Bhurtpoor, Ajmere, Tonk Bikanir, Toohpur or Narwar, Kotah, Thallawar, and Udaipur. It is often observed that the College of Jeypore stands apart from the others. The late Maharajah of Jeypore was very angry with Dholpore being allowed the first choice of site, and so he built his college outside the compound. It is only lately that Major Loch has succeeded in smoothing his vanity, and been allowed to include Jeypore, thus completing the circle.

After seeing the College we drove through the walled city of the native population, as Ajmere bazaar is particularly picturesque and dirty. It lies on the hill-side, and the glimpse of mountains as a background to the narrow streets adds to this effect.

There is a very curious tank here, filled with slimy green water, which lies in a natural hollow on the hill-side. Houses lie above it; and the marble courts and gilded minarets of a mosque overhang it on one side. The only access to the tank is by innumerable flights of irregular steps running up and down in all directions. Up and down these steps are always staggering innumerable bheesties, bent under the weight of their bursting skins, and disappearing through the archway of the passage tunnelled through to the street.

Then we drove on to the Adhai-din-ka-Ghompra, which is very interesting, on account of its being a Hindu Temple, with the facing of a Mohammedan mosque. The signification of its long-drawn-out name literally is, "the screen of two and a half days," which is generally supposed to mean that it was built in that short space of time; but Major Loch and others take a more practical view, in suggesting that it meant compulsory labour from every man of two and a half days. The lofty arches are most splendidly carved, and verses of the Koran are introduced among the bold design of the tracery. Inside you see irregular rows of Hindu pillars, carved with that grotesque figure-life of the gods of Hindu religion. These pillars are easily detected to be in three separate pieces, and were doubtless piled on each other to give the necessary height for a Mohammedan mosque, by comparison with the low, intricate structure of pillars of a Hindu temple. General Cunningham, the archæologist, considers this mosque the most interesting piece of antiquity in India.

We are much struck, as are all new arrivals in India, with the ridiculous number of servants required in one establishment. All say it is unavoidable, as each servant will only undertake one duty, and the wages given are extremely small; and there is another thing, you never know what your servant eats, nor where he sleeps--he "finds" himself in a very comprehensive sense of the term. The caste compels the first institution, and the second is in accordance with the habit of all natives. I thought it very strange at first to see the verandahs full of recumbent figures wrapped in their quilts and striped blankets, and looking like so many corpses. They sleep on the mats outside the door, under a tree, or on the road--it is all the same to them where it is, so long as they may sleep long and heavily, for all natives are very somnolent.

I think it may perhaps be interesting to give a complete list of servants necessary for the _smallest_ Indian establishment:--

One sirdár-bearer (body-servant and valet).

Two maté-bearers (under-bearers, one to wait on child and ayah).

One or two ayahs (maid and nurse).

One khansamah (literally "Lord of the stores"), butler and head table-servant.

Two khitmutgars (under table-servants).

One coachman.

Two syces, or grooms for one pair of horses (the allowance being one syce and one grass-cutter to _every_ horse).

Two ghasiaras (grass-cutters).

One chuprássi (literally badge-bearer), carrier of letters and messages.

One sirdár-mati (head-gardener).

One or two máte-matés (under-gardeners).

One bheestie (water-carrier).

One masátchi (literally torchbearer), scullion.

One cook.

One mihtu (sweeper).

One mithráni (sweeper-woman).

One dhobi (washerman).

In all twenty-three, and it must be remembered that all are absolutely necessary, as, for instance, no khitmutgar or máti-bearer would take a note or message in place of the chuprássi, and above all, one native in a garden or elsewhere would do a fraction only of the work of the same man in England.

Anglo-Indians are inordinate "grumblers." There is much to be said on their side; the exile for the best years of their life, the return then to England to be looked down upon as a "dried-up Indian official," the separation entailed from children, the same imposed upon wife from either husband or child, the exigencies of the climate, &c.; but on the other hand it ought to be remembered that the salaries are very large, the pensions fairly so in proportion, and that they are enabled to have far more luxuries in India than they could possibly hope for at home--abundance of horses and carriages, superabundance (I had almost said) of servants, at any rate sufficient to enable no Anglo-Indian ever to do or move for himself, and horses enough never to walk. I found a few, but yet a very few who took this view of the case, allowing that at home they would keep two, or at the most three, servants, and have no carriages or horses.

In the afternoon we drove to the lake, which is a beautiful feature of Ajmere. It is a lovely sheet of water--an Italian lake in miniature, with its marble balconies and platforms, with its white houses hanging over the water on the city side, while the other is formed by a range of mountains. It looked particularly smiling this afternoon, with a declining sun, as we toiled up to the Residency. This bungalow has a most perfect situation, built high up on a rocky platform, with broad verandah-rooms overlooking the lake. It seemed a pity that Colonel Bradford, the Resident, is only able to reside here for two months in the year.

In returning we passed the handsome stone building of the offices of the Rajputana-Malwar Railway, whose headquarters are at Ajmere. The adjoining bungalows of officials and clerks form quite a "line" to themselves. In the evening we performed the customary programme of going to the club for an hour, and then the drive home in the dark was made romantically beautiful by the illumination of the tomb of an old saint on the mountain-side, the lights seeming to glimmer and twinkle in mid-air in the density of the darkness.

We left Ajmere that evening, catching up the mail train again at midnight, and travelling for eighteen hours all night and through the day, till we reached Ahmedabad at five this afternoon.

_Saturday, February 6th._--Chota hazri after the usual Indian custom, and then a morning's sight-seeing before breakfast at 10 a.m.

Ahmedabad ranks in population as the second town in the Bombay Presidency; and the native quarters, as usual enclosed within a city wall, entered by no less than seventeen gateways, is very large. There is very little of interest to be seen at Ahmedabad. We drove first to the Mogul Viceroy's palace, that of Azim Khán, which has two massive Norman towers flanking the gateway. It forms now a very suitable entrance for its present purpose, for the _ci-devant_ palace is now the jail of the district.

On the other side lies the European quarter, the jail thus forming the boundary-line between the native and European populations. By the side of the walls, hidden away in a corner, are the celebrated windows of the Bhadar. They represent the trunk, branches, and foliage of a single tree in each window, in the carved and fretted stone-work. They are exceedingly beautiful, so much so, that copies of them are in the South Kensington Museum.

The Kankariya Tank is very pretty, and, with its raised causeway leading to the garden island in its midst, has become a favourite evening resort. Near here are seen to rise the beautiful minars of the mosque of Shah Alam, the spiritual adviser and friend of Sultan Ahméd, the founder of the city. Within the court lies the tomb, with double galleries of fretwork--its chief beauty--and it is remarkable that each panel of the double screens is carved in a different pattern and device. The canopy is of oak, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, precious now, as it has become a lost art to the workmen of Ahmedabad.

They have the uncomfortable custom here of covering the marble sarcophagi with precious stuffs; thus, on entering one of these tombs the effect produced is as of a row of coffins covered with palls, more especially when, as frequently, wreaths are laid on them.

Then we followed the usual round of mosques, tombs, and temples, of which we, as well as my readers, I am sure, are wearying--the mosques being represented by the Jamma Mosque--a Hindu temple with Mohammedan arches and network of pillars (date 1567); the tombs by those of Ahméd Shah, the aforesaid founder of the city, and those of his queens; the temples by a purely Hindu one, now called the mosque and tomb of Rani Sipri. Monkeys swarm in the city, and look upon these temples and tombs as their rightful inheritance.

We notice a great difference amongst the lower orders now that we are in the Bombay Presidency as compared to that of Bengal. The natives look more well-to-do, are more clothed. There are fewer of those "savage-clothed" coolies, with their single strip of muslin around the loins. The neatly-plaited Hindu turban supersedes the hitherto more common loosely-wound Mohammedan one.

We left Ahmedabad by the ten o'clock train, and reached Baroda at 4.30 in the afternoon. Here we stayed five hours to catch up the mail train in the evening to Bombay.

We were reduced to taking a curious native cart at the station for a drive round the city. It was not quite an ekka, nor yet quite a tea-cart, but a cross between the two; and the small plank seats were put crossways and not lengthways, one behind the other. We jolted about in this for two hours till we suffered severely from a feeling of dislocation in many of our joints.

Baroda is a small and pretty city without any pretensions to special interest, save as the capital and residence of the celebrated Gaekwar of Baroda. We drove first to the pretty garden where stands his summer-house, and his cage of wild beasts. The native quarter is very large--more than usually picturesque, and the four main streets meet in the lines of a cross at a gateway, a lofty structure in white and yellow plaster. Here the guard keeps watch, a single sentry on the lofty platform of its tower commanding the whole view of the city. From his post of observation we saw a sight unequalled for the artist-loving eye--for at the moment a wedding procession was slowly threading its way from under the gateway below us, streaming away down the street in gay ribbons, narrowing with the perspective, and finally disappearing through a grey gateway further away. The block in the streets occasioned by the motley procession of ekkas and bullock-carts, and the acclamations of the crowd, further added to the striking scene.

Just beyond this gateway is the grand, grim, grey old palace of the Gaekwar. A covered gallery leads to the blue and yellow quarters of the zenana, seeming to tell of the "airy-fairy," do-nothing life of the zenana ladies by comparison with the sterner duties of the men--as if the Gaekwar liked to pass from the duties of the grey palace to the light pleasures and recreation of the gay-coloured zenana. The green buildings of the barracks are near, and the orange and yellow verandah of the police-station lower down, together forming a vivid collection of colour. The Gaekwar's cavalry paraded the streets in twos and threes, and a guard was in waiting outside the palace gate to accompany his carriage. We drove on further to see the gold and silver cannon. There are four gold cannon mounted on silver carriages! kept in a yard, where many _white_ horses are stabled round, for in the prince's stables none but white horses are found.

In returning to the station we were fortunate enough to see another curious sight, during our few hours' stay only at Baroda. Heralded by a mounted body-guard, and a running, shouting escort, the ladies of the harem passed swiftly by. The barouche was carefully closed and curtained, with a duenna standing up with the eunuch behind. The guard from the guard-house turned out to salute, bugle, and beat a tattoo.

We passed repeatedly leopards being paraded through the streets by their keepers, the pariah or "pi" dogs barking furiously at them. The animal strained at his chains, and walking with stealthy, springing step, glaring cautiously around for his prey, but the people do not fear their escaping, and are very proud of their Gaekwar's wild beasts. There is an arena at Baroda where he occasionally holds a wild-beast fight.

We came back to the station by a beautiful and stately avenue of banyan-trees.

Leaving Baroda by the mail train that night, at seven the next morning we found ourselves stopping at the various stations along the great Queen's Road of Bombay, bordered by the sea.

We drove to Watson's Hotel on the Esplanade, kept by the same proprietor, and a counterpart of the discomfort and dirt of the Great Eastern at Calcutta.

We spent a quiet day driving out to Government House at Parell, six miles away from the town, and a far from pleasant drive through some native quarter. Sir James Fergusson is away at Calcutta, paying a farewell visit to the Viceroy, as he leaves India early in March.

We went to the cathedral in the evening for service, as following the usual custom of always "thinking it hot," the morning service is held at 7 a.m.

It is to be observed that all Anglo-Indians labour under the idea of a perpetual and unabated heat in India. They always suggest you should start in the morning at some very early hour, "to be home before it is hot," and at all stations, and in Calcutta and Bombay, the habit prevails of never going out driving in the evening till just before sunset and darkness, as there is little twilight in these southern latitudes. For ourselves we have suffered more from the cold than the heat in India, but travelling in the winter gives, I am willing to allow, an erroneous idea of the climate, and gives you also no appreciable idea of the heat. Suffice it to say, oh! Anglo-Indians, that it is _not_ always hot in India.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 7: The Fortress has now been given back to the Maharajah.]

[Footnote 8: Since this was written, Lady Dufferin has founded a society with this excellent object in view.]