Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water / The Journal of a Tour Through the British Empire and America

by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent

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 1l. 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.