The first gate at the foot of the hill, where is the guard-house, is interesting as showing the inlaid enamelled tile-work which decorates it partially. Deep turquoise is the prevailing colour, and it is used for the field or background of the designs, and is inlaid in pieces cut to fit the interstices of the pattern in the yellow sandstone. In a frieze of geese in close formal procession, the birds were cut in sunk relief, and the spaces between were filled with turquoise pieces. The tile decoration on the Man Mandir Palace has been done in the same way, yellow and green tiles being also used.
We drove through the bazaar of the old town, a queer, half-ruined, and ragged place, but exceedingly picturesque, the natives squatting on their stalls, presiding over curious preparations of food and other wares, with chatting, many-coloured groups crowding around. Some of the people would look curiously at us, some would salaam, some were indifferent, others were derisive or sullen.
APPROACH TO THE PALACE OF MAN MANDIR, GWALIOR
There was rather an important-looking mosque with minarets in the town, but many of the houses were roofless and deserted.
In crossing the bridge over the river we noted the people washing clothes, and a pretty pattern of colour was formed when the stuffs were spread out over the sandbanks to dry. Here, in central India, we were able to see more of the everyday life of the people, and had more opportunities of quiet observation of country life than usual. The peasants did not seem to have the curiosity of the natives in the towns, when one sat down to make a drawing, but they went on their way, bearing their burdens, or driving ox-carts, or herds of goats, or buffalo cows, or asses.
It was quite a change to get a grey cloudy effect which occurred one morning when I had found an interesting subject by the river side. On the way thither we passed a village burning-place, strewn with heaps of ashes where the dead had been burned. The river had shrunk to a small, shallow stream, and at the spot where I sat was crossed by stepping-stones, over which groups of natives constantly passed to and fro. Cattle and ox-carts splashed through a shallow ford at intervals, and higher up natives bathed their brown bodies in the water. We were on the outskirts of the old town of Gwalior, and could see above on the rock the dark shapes of the Jain temples looming up against the sky, while around us were domes of cenotaphs, fragments of tombs, and broken walls, overshadowed by groups of fine banyan trees and mangoes. At an old draw-well near by groups of native women were continually coming and going, bearing their water-jars on their heads, their draperies forming delightful schemes of colour.
A dark thin Hindu in a white turban and waist-cloth was ploughing up his small patch of land near the river for potatoes, which members of his family working with him were preparing to sow. There were several sons—youths—two women, and some small children, all working on the land.
I made a note of the plough, a very primitive implement, having a single shaft fixed at a right angle to the share, with a cross-handle at the top. This the ploughman held with one hand—his left—guiding the plough, while with his right he drove a small pair of zebus under a yoke, who dragged it along. The share was a wedge-shaped piece of wood, tipped with iron at the point and along its edge.
Moonsawmy talked to the man while I made my notes, and he told me afterwards that the ploughman never managed to earn as much as 200 rupees in the year, though he and his family—I suppose about ten or a dozen all told—were constantly at work. His patch of land being near the river, one would have thought favourable for raising crops; but it appeared the river not infrequently was completely dry, and they were hard put to it for water for the soil. The income of the whole family worked out at about thirteen pounds a year at the most, which, taking into consideration that it had to be the support of about a dozen people, seemed narrow enough, and one could easily understand that the slightest failure of the crops would mean something like famine.