“Going up a narrow and rather steep staircase, we came to a small hall full of retainers of his Highness, waiting until it should please him to appear and breakfast with them, for it is the custom of the Maharana to make that meal a sort of public function. In the middle of the hall reposed a big bull, evidently very much at ease and quite at home!”
“A few more steps brought us to the door of the armoury. This is small and badly arranged, which seems a pity, as there were some lovely things. Chain armour and inlaid suits lay about the floor in heaps; and we were shown the saddle used by Akbar during the last siege of Chitor. The most remarkable things, however, were the Rajput shields, of which there were some beautiful specimens. They are circular, not large, and made, some of tortoiseshell, some of polished hippo hide, &c. One was inlaid with great emeralds, a second had bosses of turquoise, and a really lovely one was inlaid with fine Jaipur enamel in blue and green. There were swords simply encrusted with jewels—one with a hilt of carved crystal; another was a curiously-modelled dog’s head in smooth silver, and I noticed a beauty in pale jade. Altogether it was a most fascinating collection, different from, but in its way quite as interesting, as the fine armoury at Madrid.”
Thus did Jane triumph over me with her description of what she had seen and what I had missed; and I had been trying to delineate the Temple of Jagganath, and had been disastrously defeated, for it is indeed a complicated piece of drawing, and the children, both large and small, crowded round me to my great hindrance. Therefore, it was not until I had been soothed with an excellent lunch, and the contents of a very long tumbler, that I felt strong enough to take an intelligent interest in the contents of the Maharana’s curiosity-shop!
Monday, October 30.—The more we see of Udaipur the more we are charmed with it. The whole place is so absolutely unspoilt by modernism, is so purely Eastern—and ancient Eastern at that—that we feel as though we were in a little world far apart from the great one where steam and electricity shatter the nerves, and drive their victims through life at high pressure.
Ringed in by a rampart of arid hills, beyond which the scrub-covered desert stretches for miles, the peaceful city of Udaipur lies secluded in an oasis, whose centre is a turquoise lake. High in his palace the Maharana rules in feudal state, and, like Aytoun’s Scottish Cavalier,
“A thousand vassals dwelt around—all of his kindred they,
And not a man of all that clan has ever ceased to pray
For the royal race he loves so well.”
For to his subjects the Maharana is little less than a divinity, for is he not a direct descendant of the Sun? Likewise is he not the chief of the only royal house of Rajputana, who disdained to purchase Mogul friendship at the price of giving a daughter in marriage to the Mohammedan?
There are greater personages among the ruling Princes of India, according to British ruling—Hyderabad, for instance. And in the matter of precedence and the number of guns for ceremonial salutation, the Chief of Mewar—like other poor but proud nobles—is treated rather according to his actual power than the cloudless blue of his blood. Hence he is extremely unwilling to put himself in a position where he might fail to obtain the honour which he considers due to him. He was most averse from attending the Delhi Durbar, but such pressure was put upon him that he was induced to proceed thither in his special train running, as far as Chitorgarh, upon his own special railway. He reached Delhi, and his sponsors rejoiced that they had indeed got him to the water, although they had not exactly induced him to drink. As a matter of fact, the Maharana, having gone to Delhi to please the British authorities, promptly returned to Udaipur to please himself, alleging a terrific headache as reason for instant departure from the capital, without his having left his very own specially reserved first-class compartment!
He may not be a willing guest, but he is evidently disposed to be an excellent host, for great preparations are toward for the reception of the Prince of Wales, who is expected in the course of a fortnight or so.
The Residency, too, is being swept and garnished, the garden already looking like a miniature camp, with tents for the suite all among the flower-beds.