A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil

by T. R. Swinburne

The station is a long way from the town, as the Maharana, a most staunch conservative of the old school, having the railway more or less forced upon him, drew the line at three miles from his capital, and fixed the terminus there. One cannot help being glad that the prosaic steam-engine, crowned with foul smoke and heralded by ear-piercing whistles, has not been allowed to trespass in Udaipur, wherein no discordant note is struck by train line or factory chimney, and where everything and every one is as when the city was newly built on the final abandonment of Chitor, the ancient capital of Mewar.

Here in the heart of the most conservative of native States, whose ruler, the Maharana, Sir Fateh Singh, claims descent from that ancient luminary the Sun, we found novelty and interest in every yard of the three miles that stretch between the station and the capital. The scrub-covered desert has given place to a wooded and cultivated valley, ringed by a chain of hills, sterile and steep. The white ribbon of the road, through whose dust plough stolid buffaloes and strings of creaking bullock-carts, is bordered by tall cactus and yellow-flowered mimosa on either side. Among the trees rise countless half-ruined temples and chatries; on whose whitewashed walls are frequent frescoes of tigers or elephants rampant, and of wonderful Rajput heroes wearing the curious bell-shaped skirt, which was their distinctive dress.

The people too, their descendants, who crowd the road to-day, are remarkable—the men fine-looking, with beards brushed ferociously upwards, and all but the mere peasants carrying swords; the women, dark-eyed, and singularly graceful in their red or orange saris, and very full bell-shaped petticoats. Upright as darts, they walk with slightly swaying gesture, a slender brown arm upraised to support the big brass chatties on their heads, revealing an incredible collection of bangles on arms and ankles. These women are the descendants of those who, in the stormy days of the sixteenth century, while the Rajput princes still struggled heroically with the all-powerful Mogul emperors, preferred death to shame, and, led by Kurnavati (mother of Oodi Singh, the founder of Udaipur), accepted the “Johur,” or death by fire and suffocation, to the number of 13,000, while their husbands and brothers threw open the city gates and went forth to fight and fall.

As we drew near our destination the towers of the Maharana’s Palace rose up above the trees, gleaming snowy in the cloudless blue. The brown crenellated walls of the city appeared on our left, and, suddenly sweeping round a curve, we found ourselves by the border of a lovely lake, whose blue-rippled waters lapped the very walls of the town. In the foreground a glorious note of colour was struck by a group of “scarlet women” washing themselves and their clothes by the margin.

Up a steep incline, and we found ourselves before a verandah, blazing overhead with bougainvillea, and our hostess waiting to receive us beneath its cool shade.

In the afternoon, refreshed and rested, we went down to the shore, where our host had arranged for a state-owned boat and four rowers to be in waiting. Armed with rods and fishing tackle, we proceeded to see Udaipur from the lake which washes its northern side. First crossing a small landlocked bay bordered on the left by a long and picturesque crenellated wall, and passing through a narrow opening, we found ourselves in a second division of the water; on the left, still the wall, with a delightful-looking summer-house perched at a salient angle; on the right, small wooded islands, the haunt of innumerable cormorants, who, with snaky necks outstretched, watched us suspiciously from their eyrie.

A curious white bridge, very high in the centre, barred the view of the main lake till, passing through the central arch, we found ourselves in a scene of perfect enchantment. Before us the level sheet of molten silver lay spread, reflecting the snowy palaces and summer-houses that stood amid the palms and greenery of many tiny islands. On the left the city rose from the water in a succession of temples and wide-terraced buildings, culminating in the lofty pile of the Palace of the Maharana. Here, on this enchanted lake, we rowed to and fro until the sun sank swiftly in the west and the red gold glowed on temple and turret.

Then, with our catch, about 15 lbs. weight of most excellent fish, we rowed back past the white city to the landing-place, and, in the gathering dark, climbed the hillock upon which stood our host’s bungalow.

We spent a week at Udaipur—a happy week, whose short days flew by far too quickly. The weather was splendid; hot in the middle of the day—for the season is late, and the monsoon has greatly failed in its cooling duty—but delightful in morning and evening.

Rising one morning at early dawn, before the sun leaped above the eastern hills, we took boat and rowed to one of the island palaces, where, after fishing for mahseer, we breakfasted on a marble balcony overlooking the ripples of the Pichola Lake, which lapped the feet of a group of great marble elephants.