It is necessary to be furnished with a formal permission from the Resident to visit Amber. Formerly elephants were placed at the disposal of visitors by the Maharajah, but since tourists became numerous elephants must be hired by them. They are by no means richly caparisoned elephants. The housings leave much to be desired, and the seats are much out of repair, and one is lucky to find the foot-board slung at a usable level and fairly horizontal, and if the protecting rail of the seat does not slip out.
For those who are willing to sacrifice processional dignity and spectacular effect, however, as well as a slow shaking, it is quite possible to walk—for the able bodied, and before the sun is high.
After a steepish hill at first the road descends again, and passing along the border of a small lake, turns round at its head and again ascends to the palace on a considerable height, of which a distant view is obtained, as one approaches it, from the road. It is a striking pile of Mohammedan architecture. Three great gateways are passed on the steep approach up the rocky sides of the hill, and the road is protected by a wall, as at Chitorgarh. Finally the great gateway leading into the courtyard of the palace is reached, and we dismount from the elephant and are surrounded by a number of hangers-on, one of which comes forward to act as guide over the palace, which showed traces of considerable restoration. The great doors of solid brass were exceedingly fine (both here and at the Maharajah’s palace in Jaipur—really the best things there). There were also doors beautifully inlaid with ivory and ebony to some of the zenana rooms, all the doors being interesting for their woods and joinery. There were some delicate pierced marble screens over the gateway of the inner court which had a most lovely effect seen against the sky. The rooms were very elaborately decorated with a sort of veneer of small pieces of looking-glass arranged in arabesque, and united by cloisonné of gesso forming the lines of divisions of the pattern, similar to that we had seen at Udaipur. This decoration, carried all over a vaulted ceiling, in the sunlight reflected from the floor, glittered like beaten silver. On the lower halls were delicate marble panels of floral designs in relief.
The palace as a whole did not strike us as so beautiful as that at Udaipur, although vastly more so than the Maharajah’s at Jaipur.
SHOPPING IN JAIPUR
From the roof and terraces we looked down on gardens and pavilions and on the lake below, then partially dry, and wondered how this vast palace with all its luxurious decoration came to be deserted. A temple at the main entrance, however, is still maintained for worship, which is that of Kali—one of the aspects or secondary characters of Parvati, the wife of Siva—a savage, blood-thirsty goddess only propitiated by animal sacrifices. A goat or a kid is still sacrificed daily here. It was pathetic enough to see the innocent, unconscious intended victim—a poor little kid tied at the corner of the platform of the temple by a little heap of sand. Mr W. S. Caine gives a graphic account of how the head of the victim is instantaneously cut off by the officiating priest, an act he witnessed, but we felt no desire to see this execution.
On our way back I saw a curious instance of the boldness of a kite and the unerring way in which they swoop at their prey. A native was walking down the hill in front of us carrying a piece of bread in his hand, from which he ate, swinging it at his side between whiles. A kite hovering above made a sudden swoop at the bread, which he struck with his beak, scattering the crumbs, though he did not succeed in knocking it quite out of the man’s hand.
Driving in the evening through the bazaars at Jaipur we stopped the carriage to purchase some native cottons and muslins, and were immediately surrounded by a noisy, struggling crowd of rival traders who filled the carriage with their gay coloured stuffs, and literally covered us up with them. Our bearer negotiated the bargains, and in the end we carried off some characteristic textile souvenirs. On the way back to our hotel we stopped to see the Maharajah’s horses, passing through a gateway into a large exercise ground, down the sides of which ran a long open shed, with horses tethered in a line, each horse being secured by long ropes from each hind fetlock fastened to pegs on iron rings fixed in the ground, which sloped down to the open court. In addition to these each horse was tied by a halter, with a rope each side to rings in the manger, and all, of course, had cloths on. There were no partitions between the animals, which I suppose was the reason of their being so carefully secured. There were some very fine animals among them, and the native grooms were very willing to show them off—for a little backsheesh. There were white Arabs, Walers, English hunters, and a tiny Burmese pony.