It is true that the native children seemed sometimes inclined to mock at a stranger, in a spirit of monkey mischief, perhaps, but there are little street gamins in any city, and the latest product of our civilisation, the London street arab, would be difficult to beat anywhere, East or West.
CHAPTER V
CHITORGARH AND UDAIPUR
From Ajmir there is a branch line to Chitorgarh and Udaipur, and no traveller in India should miss the opportunity of visiting both these highly interesting places. Leaving Ajmir, the railway runs south through a rather flat country, passing Naisirabad, an important British military station. The English “Tommy” in khaki, and white helmet and putties, or the sun-burned, brown-booted and spurred British cavalry officer, were in evidence at the railway station. Among the native crowd here we saw a turbaned man in pink carrying a very thin, aged woman, probably his mother, pick-a-back fashion.
A very dry and almost desert tract of country is traversed after this, though occasionally varied by irrigated fields and green crops. The irrigation wells, worked by oxen as before, and the native ploughing, were the chief incidents in the landscape. The plough is a very primitive-looking implement with a single shaft, with a cross handle fixed at right angles to the shaft, which consists of a sharpened piece of wood, tipped with iron. The plough is drawn by a pair of zebus, and is light enough for the man to lift up and turn at the end of the furrow, or even to be carried home on his shoulder at the end of the day. There were thick hedges of spikey sort of cactus, branching out from a main stem, something like candelabra, the fronds growing in a longitudinal, rigid form. These hedges fenced the railway line from the fields on the desert. Another plant of common occurrence, both here and all over India, was a broad-leaved shrub of symmetric order, having small, pale, lilac flowers, the stems rather a yellow, and the leaves a lightish blue green. We noted also a sort of wild laburnam. The prickly pear was common, and a sort of prickly acacia-like shrub much liked by camels. The trees were mostly various acacias, the banyan tree (Ficus), and the teak. In places we saw both date and cocoa palms. At one station (Mandal) the level plains, with pyramidal hills in the distance and a grove of palms and camels in the foreground, again recalled Egypt.
The cultivated crops we passed were cotton, tobacco, rice, wheat, and sugar cane.
At every station may be seen the water filter, a wooden tripod stand, holding three red earthen water-jars, one above the other. The natives drink quantities of water, and always carry a small drinking-vessel of bright brass, which they take every opportunity of filling. The water-bearer is a characteristic figure everywhere, and comes up to the train with his cry, “Panee! panee!” which (with an Italian prepossessed ear) is more suggestive of another, and solid, necessary of life. Bread, however, in Hindustanee, happens to be “roti.”
Having left Ajmir by the 9.20 A.M. train, we arrived at Chitorgarh about five in the evening, and put up at the station rooms for the night. There was a considerable crowd on the long, open, gravelled platform, mainly natives, with a small contingent of English and American tourists. European tourists in India, however, were generally few and far between, the United States being much more numerously represented. A picturesque group was formed by a native resident from Udaipur, with his retinue, waiting for their train on. The chief was a venerable and a kindly-looking man, with white hair and beard, reminding one rather of the late G. F. Watts. He was gaily dressed in a pink turban and a lilac silk coat, and was seated on a chair on the platform, surrounded by his attendants in scarlet; among these was his trumpeter, with a bugle slung around him, and a quad of four soldiers in khaki and turbans.
We found the Traveller’s Bungalow was about three-quarters of a mile or so away from the station. The bedrooms were all taken by the English and American parties, but we could feed there, so, retaining our quarters at the station, we walked to the Bungalow for our dinner. It was a lovely moonlight night, with bright stars, but there was a cold north wind as we were guided by our bearer with a lantern along a rather rough track, and crossed the railway to the Bungalow, a new stone building, bare and cheerless as they make them, standing all by itself in a stoney yard without a tree near it. The dinner, or supper, was not very rewarding, and we trudged back again to the station in the cold moonlight. The station we found quieter than usual. The servants of the resident had encamped upon the platform, and formed picturesque groups around fires, cooking and gossiping; their master sleeping in the train, which was drawn up ready to start for Udaipur early the next morning.