I suggested that another carriage should be put on, but he had none, nor any solution to offer; so we cleared a second-class compartment and divided the party out, and then, with five people in our tiny compartment, we set out on the fifty-mile run to Udaipur.
Five people in a carriage in Europe is nowise unusual, but five people in an Indian one (and that a narrow, very narrow gauge), accompanied by rolls of bedding, tiffin-baskets, and all the quantity of personal luggage which is absolutely necessary, not to speak of a large-sized bird-cage (which cannot, strictly speaking, be classed as a necessary), requires the ingenuity of a professional packer of herrings or figs to adjust nicely!
By cramming the toilet place with bedding, khudsticks, a five-foot brass lamp-stand, and the four soda-water bottles, we made shift to stow portmanteaux, bags, tiffin-baskets, &c., under the seats and ourselves upon them, and then arranged a sort of centre-piece of Jane’s big tin bonnet-box, surmounted by Freddy in his cage. The other passengers were very amiably disposed, and not fat, and they even went so far as to pretend to admire Freddy—a feat of some difficulty, as he is still very bald and of an altogether forbidding aspect. This admiration so won upon the heart of Jane, that in the fulness thereof she served out biscuits and a little tinned butter all round, while Freddy cheerfully spattered food and water upon all indiscriminately.
About eighteen miles from Udaipur we passed the ruins of Ontala. Here, in the stormy time when Jehangir had seized Chitor, there happened a desperate deed.
The Rana of Mewar, expelled from his capital, determined to attack and retake Ontala. Now, the Rajputs were divided into clans as fiery as any of those whose fatal pride went far to ruin Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden. The Chondawats and the Saktawats both claimed the right of forming the vanguard, and the Rana, unable to pronounce in favour of either, subtly decided that the van should be given to the clan which should first enter Ontala.
The Saktawats then made straight for the one and only gateway to the fortress, and, reaching it as day broke, almost surprised the place, but the walls were quickly manned and defended. Foiled for a moment, the leader of the Saktawats threw himself from his elephant, and, placing himself before the great spikes with which the gate was protected against the assault of the beast, ordered the mahout to charge; and so a crushed and mangled corpse was forced into the city on the brow of the living battering-ram, in whose wake the assailants rushed to battle.
Alas! his sacrifice was in vain. The Chondawat chief was already in Ontala. First of the stormers with scaling-ladders, he was shot dead by the defenders ere reaching the top of the rampart, and his corpse fell back among his dismayed followers. Then the chief of Deogurh, rolling the body in his scarf, tied it upon his back, fought his way to the crest of the battlements, and hurled the gory body of his chieftain into the city, shouting, “The vanguard to the Chondawat!”
It is further told how, when the attack began, two Mogul chiefs of note were engaged within upon a game of chess. Confident of the strength of the defence, they continued their game, unheeding the din of battle. Suddenly the foe broke in upon them, upon which they calmly asked for leave to finish their interesting match. The request was granted by the courtly Rajputs, but upon its termination they were both put to death.
Udaipur lies in a well-cultivated basin, shut in by a ring of arid hills. After skirting the flanks of some of the outlying spurs, we bustled through a tunnel and drew up at a bright little station, draped with great blue and pink convolvulus. And this was Udaipur.
We were picked out of the usual jabbering, jostling, gibbering crowd of natives by our host, who, looking most enviably cool and clean, took his heated, dishevelled, and unbarbered guests off to a comfortable carriage, and we were quickly sped towards tiffin and a bath.