THE MAHARAJAH’S PALACE AT UDAIPUR. FROM THE JAGMANDIR PAVILION
A charming excursion by boat may be made to the palace of Jagmandir, which occupies the whole of an island on the lake, a fairy-like pavilion enclosing luxuriant palms and fruit trees within its courts and gardens in which one realised the architecture and scenery of the Arabian Nights.
We reached the lakeside through a fine triple-arched gate which led to a flight of steps descending into the water. Here a striking scene burst upon us. A crowd of dark Hindu women thronged the steps, clad for the most part in rich red saris of different tones, varied by orange and purple drapery and the glitter of their silver bangles and anklets. They were busy cleaning their brass water jars, scrubbing and polishing them on the steps at different levels; some standing in the water, whilst others, filling their vessels and poising them on their heads, would move away stately and erect, like walking caryatids.
Presently a rather heavy boat with two native oarsmen, which had been summoned by our guide moved from the palace to the steps and we, with our bearer, embarked, and were rowed over to the enchanting island and the fairy-like palace of Jagmandir where Shah Jehan lived when in revolt against his father, Jahangir. On the way we rowed around another island showing white arcades and domes emerging from green bowery foliage of mangoes and palms.
Landing at the steps we found the Jagmandir a most lovely place, full of arcaded courts, and marble pavements, pointed windows and balconies and marble walls enclosing green gardens full of roses, and palms, and plantains, a kingly pavilion, displaying all the invention and refinement of Mogul art. Inside, too, the palace was full of interest. There was a charming little painted chamber, the walls treated in a sort of tapestry manner with Indian scenes and decorative landscapes rich with trees and varied with all the characteristic birds and animals (the white cranes on the mango tree which we had seen in reality at Ahmedabad were there) kites and crows, and antelopes, and the Maharajah and his horsemen hunting the tiger amid these painted forests and jungles. On one wall the Maharajah himself was painted at full length in profile in a white turban and dress also white embroidered with gold, with a gold nimbus about his head as he is supposed to be descended from Rama, and is considered a sacred person connected with the sun—a large sun face modelled and gilded appears on the palace wall.
Another room was said to have been painted by a French artist. He had taken the lotus as a motive and had tuned it into a formal scroll pattern in the frieze, but it was not a success, and had not the interest or the spirit or decorative instinct of the native artist.
The chief salon had Parisian carpets on the floor, and a dreadful blue glass chandelier, and other horrors in glass and furniture of Western origin. Opening out of this salon was a bedroom raised a step or two on a higher level and the principal feature here was a large bedstead in glass and silver! On the walls of one of the courts was a decoration in gesso inlaid with glass, which was both delicate and effective. There were figures decoratively treated in severe profile, combined with trees and flowers somewhat Persian in feeling and similar in style to some we had seen in the Maharajah’s palace.
From the landing-place I made a sketch of that palace in the sunlight reflected in the calm waters of the lake. Then, at noon we rowed back to the town and returned in our tonga to the hotel.
Another of the sights of Udaipur is to see the Maharajah’s wild pigs fed. He has an arena near the town for the cruel sport of pig-sticking, but keeps vast herds of pigs upon the mountain sides at the head of the lake. It is a beautiful drive to the spot through the city and out at a further gate, and through groves and along a terrace-like road by the lakeside, to a white building on a high ground overlooking the wooded and rocky mountain side, partially covered with low forest; there from a terrace we could see many swine feeding. They are like a small kind of wild boar, but differing in size, and very fierce, bristling their backs and charging one another over the food, which was Indian corn, scattered broadcast among them by two natives, one carrying the sack of grain and the other distributing it from a sort trencher. There was a sort of Brobdingnagian mouse-trap on the ground, presumably to catch the boars in, when wanted for the arena. There were but few boars at first to be seen, but they seemed to know the feeding time, and gradually gathered in large numbers, and when the grain was scattered, by their constant rushes after it and violent charges with each others soon raised such a thick cloud of dust that they became lost to view as in a thick mist, and could only hear their hoofs scraping over the rocky ground, and their savage grunts and squeaks. A number of peacocks hovered on the outskirts on the look out for stray grain as well as blue rocks and crows which often perched on the hogs’ backs! The terrace from which we surveyed this strange scene was really the parapeted flat roof of the keeper’s dwelling. A flight of steps led up to a higher terrace which surrounded a deep sort of bear-pit, where a select family of hogs seemed to be treated with peculiar distinction. Not for these the fierce struggle for grain upon the mountain side, when the battle was to the strong; no, these were fed upon a special food—a sort of large brown rissole composed of buttermilk and sugar-cane; but the hogs were fat and did not devour these attractive morsels, even with half the zest which their less favoured relatives outside ate up the scattered maize. The reason of the comparative luxury in which these selected hogs lived, we learned, was that they had fought with tigers, and thus were treated as superior beings, by order of the Maharajah.
The wooded shores of the lake and the mountains beyond were very beautiful in the still evening atmosphere, as we drove back to Udaipur, the road by the lake being so narrow that two carriages could not pass, and, meeting the Resident, we had to pull in to one side to let his carriage get by.