The mosque was not used for worship. In the court a rope or cord maker was at work. The white strands stretched over canes from the man working at one end of the walk to where at the other end his assistant sat at a sort of wheel by means of which the strands were twisted into a cord of the required thickness.
After this we drove to the Daulat Bagh (Garden of splendour)—then passing through a beautiful park full of pine-trees we came to the white marble pavilion built by Shah Jehan, standing on a marble balustraded terrace, and overlooking a lovely lake, bounded by mountains—a lovely spot. The pavilion has been restored by the Indian government, and looks quite new. Marble, however, does not seem to weather or discolour in the Indian climate, and the difference between new and old is not nearly so marked as in European countries, while the imitative faculty of the Hindu workman and the traditions of craftsmanship under which he still works help to complete the illusion when restoration is done. New or old, it was an enchanting place, especially when the evening sun floods the whole scene with golden light, streaming through the trees, and filling the marble porticoes with warm colour. The lake still as a mirror, reflecting the fairy palace and the dreamy distance in its glassy surface. The chief commissioner should be happy to have his residence in the midst of this lovely garden. The lake is as useful too as it is beautiful, as from it is obtained the water supply of Ajmir.
Another of our evening drives was through the cantonments outside the native city. We passed through the English military quarters, and saw the long low barrack-like bungalows of the soldiers, clean and neat, but bare and ugly. There were more comfortable bungalows of the officers and other English residents in gardens and amid trees, with entrance gates and drives, almost suburban, allowing for little differences in detail. The names of the residents, for instance, were painted in white block-letters on ugly black boards placed outside the gates of the gardens. There was the usual club house in a landscape garden, and here a military band of native infantry was playing, conducted by a man in a straw hat. English ladies, and children with their native aejahs and bearers scattered about the lawns.
On the road a little distance from the town a large number of natives were busy making up the road over a new bridge across the railway. Many of these coolies were very attenuated, and might have come from the famine districts.
Passing through the bazaar on my return from sketching in the Dargah, I noticed among the stalls of a crowded and picturesque native street a craftsman at work putting a border pattern upon the edge of a piece of orange-coloured muslin. He first printed or stamped the border, a small leaf and flower pattern, from a wood block with some sort of size of a brown colour, and when this was sufficiently “tacky” he laid on silver leaf over the pattern thus defined by the block in size, and finished by brushing away the superfluous leaf with a soft brush, much as our gilders do.
A quaint effect was produced by the camels here, laden with great sheafs of sugar-cane, which trailed behind, spreading out over their hind quarters in a way that suggested skirts or a crinoline—viewed from behind.
THE CAMEL’S CRINOLINE (SUGAR CANE) AJMIR
From our terrace over the railway station we could observe the varied groups of natives which continually thronged the platforms and the yards outside. Certainly the native in India makes constant use of the railways, although the railways do not take any trouble to make them comfortable. The native carriages seem always in an overcrowded state, and many of them are rather suggestive of cattle trucks with rough wooden partitions. Troups of natives will come to a railway station and camp all night waiting for some train in the morning. On inquiring what classes or manner of people these poor travellers mostly were, I was told that they comprised chiefly pilgrims to various shrines and festivals in different parts of the country, and small traders. The Ryot, or agriculturist, did not travel much, as might be supposed. The people usually bore great bundles with them, bedding presumably, and other necessaries for long journeys. These the women carried upon their heads. In the evenings groups of natives would be seen gathered round fires made on the ground. These were often mere flares of straw, and did not last very long, though they may have served to mitigate the chill of the nightfall, which is always so sudden in India.
As evidence of the extraordinary variety of colour arrangements in the costume of the natives in the bazaars, here are a few notes made of the colours worn by passers-by, both men and women, at Ajmir observed in the course of a few minutes.