.....rfff ^ft*»«'^ '^^^^^wni^mi^simKWaaciS^ . I. i-'^. :f'\:\ Jf JMiirque i'O'./ am Kiphm 3ii':< and the Hospital — The House Beautiful of Jeypore and its Builders. FEOM the Cotton Press the Englishman wandered through the wide streets till he came into a Hindu Temple — rich in marble, stone and inlay, and a deep and tranquil silence, close to the Public Library of the State. The brazen bull was hung with flowers, and men were burning the evening incense before Maha- -deo, while those who had prayed their prayer, beat upon the bells hanging from the roof and passed out, secure in the knowledge that the god had heard them. If there be much religion, there is little reverence, as Westerns under- stand the term, in the services of the gods of the East. A tiny little maiden, child of a mon- strously ugly priest with one chalk-white eye, staggered across the marble pavement to the shrine and threw, with a gust of childish laugh- Letters of Marqite 35 ter, the blossoms she was carrying into the lap of the great Mahadeo himself. Then she made as though she would leap up to the bells and ran away, still laughing, into the shadow of the cells behind the shrine, while her father explained that she was but a baby and that Mahadeo would take no notice. The temple, he said, was specially favored by the Maharaja, and drew from lands an income of twenty thousand rupees a year. Thakoors and great men also gave gifts out of their benevolence; and there was nothing in the wide world to prevent an Englishman from following their example. By this time, for Amber and the Cotton Press had filled the hours, night was falling, and the priests unhooked the swinging jets and began to light up the impassive face of Mahadeo with gas ! They used Tsendstikker matches. Full night brought the hotel and its curiously- composed human menagerie. There is, if a work-a-day world will give credit, a society entirely outside, and uncon- nected with, that of the Station — a planet within a planet, where nobody knr»ws anything about the Collector's wife, the Colonel's dinner- party, or what was really the matter with the Engineer. It is a curious, an insatiably curious, thing, and ite literature is Newman's Bradshaw. 36 Letters of Marque Wandering " old arms-sellers " and others live upon it, and so do the garnetmen and the mak- ers of ancient Eajput shields. The world of the innocents abroad is a touching and unsophis- ticated place, and its very atmosphere urges the Anglo-Indian unconsciously to extravagant mendacity. Can you wonder, then, that a guide of long-standing should in time grow to be an accomplished liar? Into this world sometimes breaks the Anglo- Indian returned from leave, or a fugitive to the sea, and his presence is like that of a well-known landmark in the desert. The old arms-seller knows and avoids him, and he is detested by the jobber of gharis who calls everyone " my lord " in English, and panders to the " glaring race anomaly " by saying that every carriage not under his control is " rotten, my lord, having been used by natives." One of the privileges of playing at tourist is the brevet-rank of "Lord." Hazur is not to be compared with it. There are many, and some very curious, methods of seeing India. One of these is buying English translations of the more Zolaistic of Zola's novels and reading them from breakfast to dinner-time in the verandah. Yet another, even simpler, is American in its conception. Take a Newman's Bradshaw and a blue pencil, Letters of Marque 37 and race up and down the length of the Empire, ticking off the names of the stations " done." To do this thoroughly, keep strictly to the rail- way buildings and form vour conclusions through the carriage-windows. These eyes have seen both ways of working in full blast and, on the whole, the first is the most commendable. Let us consider now with due reverence the modern side of Jeypore. It is difficult to write of a nickel-plated civilisation set down under the immemorial Aravalis in the first state of Rajputana. The red-grey hills seem to laugh at it, and the ever-shifting sand-dunes under the hills take no accoimt of it, for they advance upon the bases of the monogranuned, coronet- crowned lamp-posts, and fill up the points of the natty tramways near the Water-works, which are the outposts of the civilisation of Jeypore. Escape from the city by the Railway Station tiU you meet the cactus and the miid-baiik and the Maharaja's Cotton Press. Pass between a tramway and a trough for wayfaring camels till your foot sinks ankle-deep in soft sand, and you come upon what seems to be the fringe of il- limitable desert — mound upon mound of tus- socks overgrown with plumed grass where the parrots sit and swing. Here, if you have kept to the road, you shall find a bimd faced with stone, 38 Letters of Marque a great tank, and pumping machinery fine as the heart of a municipal engineer can desire — pure water, sound pipes and well-kept engines. If you belong to what is sarcastically styled an " able and intelligent municipality " under the British Raj, go down to the level of the tank, scoop up the water in your hands and drink, think- ing meanwhile of the defects of the town whence you came. The experience will be a profitable one. There are statistics in connection with the Water-works, figures relating to " three- throw-plungers," delivery and supply, which should be known to the professional reader. They would not interest the unprofessional who would learn his lesson among the thronged stand-pipes of the city. While the Englishman was preparing in his mind a scathing rebuke for an erring municipal- ity that he knew of, a camel swung across the sands, its driver's jaw and brow bound mummy fashion to guard against the dust. The man was evidently a stranger to the place, for he pulled up and asked the Englishman where the drinking troughs were. He was a gentleman and bore very patiently with the Englishman's absurd ignorance of his dialect. He had come from some village, with an unpronounceable name, thirty hos away, to see his brother's son Letters of Marque 39 ^vho was sick in the big Hospital. While the camel was drinking, the man talked, lying back on his mount. He knew nothing of Jeypore, except the names of certain Englishmen in it, the men who, he aaid, had made the Water- works and built the Hospital for his brother's son's comfort. And this is the curious feature of Jeypore; though happily the city is not unique in its peculiarity. When the late Maharaja ascended the throne, more than fifty years ago, it was his royal will and pleasure that Jeypore should ad- vance. Whether he was prompted by love for his subjects, desire for praise, or the magnifi- cent vanity with which Jey Singh must have been so largely dowered, are questions that con- corn nobody. In the latter years of his reign, he was supplied with Englishmen who made the State their father-land, and identified them- selves with its progress as only Englishmen can. Behind them stood the Maharaja ready to spend money with a lavishness that no Supreme Gov- ernment would dream of; and it would not be too much to say that the two made the State what it is. When Ham Singh died, Madho Singh, his successor, a conservative Hindu, forebore to interfere in any way with the work that was going forward. It is said in the city 40 Let ters of Marque that he does not orerburden himself with the cares of State, the driving power being mainly in the hands of a Bengali, who has everything but the name of Minister. Nor do the English- men, it is said in the city, mix themselves with the business of Government; their business be- ing wholly executive. They can, according to the voice of the city, do what they please, and the voice of the city — not in the main roads but in the little side-alleys where the stall-less bull blocks the path — attests how well their pleasure has suited the pleasure of the people. In truth, to men of action few things could be more delightful than having a State of fifteen thousand square miles placed at their disposal, as it were, to leave their mark on. Unfortunately for the vagrant travel- ler, those who work hard for practical ends pre- fer not to talk about their doings, and he must, therefore, pick up what information he can at second-hand or in the city. The men at the stand-pipes explain that the Maharaja Sahib's father gave the order for the Water-works and that Yakub Sahib made them — not only in the city but out away in the district. " Did people grow more crops thereby ?" " Of course they did : were canals made to wash in only ?" " How much more crops ?" " Who knows. The Sahib Letters of Marque 41 had better go and ask some official." Increased irrigation means increase of revenue for the State somewhere, but the man who brought about the increase does not say so. After a few days of amateur globe-trotting, a shamelessness great as that of the other loafer — the red-nosed man who hangs about compounds and is always on the eve of starting for Cal- cutta — possesses the masquerader; so that he feels equal to asking a Resident for a parcel-gilt howdah, or dropping in to dinner with a Lieu- tenant-Governor. ^0 man has a right to keep anything back from a Globe-Trotter, who is a mild, temperate, gentlemanly and unobtrusive seeker after truth. Therefore he who, without a word of enlightenment, sends the visitor into a city which he himself has beautified and adorned and made clean and wholesome, de- serves unsparing exposure. And the city may be trusted to betray him. The malli in the Ram Xewa's Gardens, gardens — here the English- man can speak from a fairly extensive experi- ence — finer than any in India and fit to rank with the best in Paris — says that the Maharaja gave the order and Yakub Sahib made the Gardens. He also says that the Hospital just outside the Gardens was built by Yakub Sahib, and if the Sahib will go to the centre of the 42 Letters of Marque Gardens, he will find another big building, a Museum by the same hand. But the Englishman went first to the Hos- pital, and found the out-patients beginning to arrive. A hospital cannot tell lies about its own progress as a municipality can. Sick folk either come or lie in their own villages. In the case of the Mayo Hospital they came, and the opera- tion-book showed that they had been in the habit of coming. Doctors at issue with provincial and local administrations. Civil Surgeons who can- not get their indents complied with, ground- down and mutinous practitioners all India over, would do well to visit the Mayo Hospital, Jey- pore. They might, in the exceeding bitterness of their envy, be able to point out some defects in its supplies, or its beds, or its splints, or in the absolute isolation of the women's quarters from the men's. Envy is a low and degrading passion, and should be striven against. From the Hospital the Englishman went to the Museum in the cen- tre of the Gardens, and was eaten up by it, for Museums appealed to him. The casing of the jewel was in the first place superb — a wonder of carven white stone of the Indo-Saracenie style. It stood on a stone plinth, and was rich in stone- tracery, green marble columns from Ajmir, red Letters of Marque 43 marble, white marble colonnades, courts with fountains, richly-carved wooden doors, frescoes, inlay and colour. The ornamentation of the tombs of Delhi, the palaces of Agra and the walls of Amber, have been laid under contribu- tion to supply the designs in bracket, arch, and sofEt; and stone-masons from the Jeypore School of Art have woven into the wort the best that their hands could produce. The building in essence, if not in the fact of to-day, is the work of Freemasons. The men were allowed a certain scope in their choice of detail and the result but it should be seen to be understood, as it stands in those Imperial Gardens. And observe, the man who had designed it, who had superintended its erection, had said no word to indicate that there was such a thing in the place, or that every foot of it, from the domes of the roof to the cool green chunam dadoes and the carving of the rims of the fountains in the court- yard, was worth studying ! Round the arches of the great centre court are written in Sanskrit and Hindi, texts from the great Hindu writers of old, bearing on the beauty of wisdom and the sanctity of knowledge. In the central corridor are six great frescoes, each about nine feet by five, copies of illustra- tions in the Royal Folio of the Razmnameh, the 44 Letters of Marque Mahahharaia, which Akbar oaiised to be done by the best artists of his day. The original is in the Museum, and he who can steal it, will find a purchaser at any price up to fifty thousand pounds. Letters of Marqiie 45 V. Of the Sordidness of the Supreme Government on the Revenue Side; and of the Palace of Jeypore — A great King's Pleasure-House, and the Work of the Servants of State. INTERISTALLY, there is, in all honesty, no limit to the luxury o£ the Jeypore Museum. It revels in " South Kensington " cases — of the approved pattern — that turn the beholder home-sick, and South Kensington labels, where- on the description, measurements and price of each object, are fairly printed. These make savage one who knows how labelling is bungled in some of the Government Museums — those starved barns that are supposed to hold the economic exhibits, not of little States but of great Provinces. The floors are of dark red chunam, overlaid with a discreet and silent matting; the doors, where they are not plate-glass, are of carved wood, no two alike, hinged by sumptuous brass hinges on to marble jambs and opening without noise. On the carved marble pillars of each hall are fixed revolving cases of the S. K. M. 1:6 Letters of Marque pattern to show textile fabrics, gold lace and the like. In the recesses of the walls are more cases, and on the railing of the gallery that runs round each of the three great central rooms, are fixed low cases to hold natural history specimens and models of fruits and vegetables. Hear this, G-ovemments of India from the Punjab to Madras ! The doors come true to the jamb, the cases, which have been through a hot weather, are neither warped nor cracked, nor are there unseemly tallow-drops and flaws in the glasses. The maroon cloth, on or against which the exhibits are placed, is of close texture, untouched by the moth, neither stained nor meagre nor sunfaded; the revolving cases revolve freely and without rattling ; there is not a speck of dust from one end of the building to the other, because the menial staff are numerous enough to keep everything clean, and the Curator's ofSce is a veritable office — not a shed or a bath-room, or a loose-box partitioned from the main build- ing. These things are so because money has been spent on the Museum, and it is now a re- buke to all other Museums in India, from Cal- cutta downwards. Whether it is not too good to be buried away in a Native State is a question which envious men may raise and answer as they choose. Not long ago, the Editor of a Leiters of Marque. 47 Bombay paper passed through it, but having the interests of the Egocentric Presidency be- fore his eyes, dwelt more upon the idea of the building than its structural beauties; saying that Bombay, who professed a weakness for technical education, should be ashamed of her- self. And herein he was quite right. The system of the Musemn is complete in intention as are its appointments in design. At pi'esent there are some fifteen thousand objects of art, " surprising in themselves " as, Count Smaltork would say, a complete exposition of the arts, from enamels to pottery and from brassware to stone-carving, of the State of Jey- pore. They are compared with similar arts of other lands. Thus a Damio's sword — a gem of lacquer-plaited silk and stud-work — flanks the tulwars of Marwar and the jczails of Tonk; and reproductions of Persian and Russian brass- work stand side by side with the handicrafts of the pupils of the .Te^^pore School of Art. A photograph of His Highness the present Maha- raja is set among the arms, which are the most prominent features of the first or metal-room. As the villagers enter, they salaam reverently to the photo, and then move on slowly, with an evidently intelligent interest in what they see. Ruskin conld describe the scene admirably — 48 Letters of Marque pointing out how reverence must precede the study of art, and how it is good for Englishmen and Kajputs alike to bow on occasion before Gessler's cap. They thumb the revolving cases of cloths do these rustics, and artlessly try to feel the texture through the protecting glass. The main object of the Museum is avowedly provin- cial — to show the craftsman of Jeypore the best that his predecessors could do, and to show him what foreign artists have done. In time — but the Curator of the Museum has many schemes which will assuredly bear fruit in time, and it would be unfair to divulge them. Let those who doubt the thoroughness of a Museum under one man's control, built, filled, and endowed with royal generosity — an institution perfectly inde- pendent of the Government of India — go and exhaustively visit Dr. Hendley's charge at Jey- pore. Like the man who made the building, he refuses to talk, and so the greater part of the work that he has in hand must be guessed at. At one point, indeed, the Curator was taken off his guard. A huge map of the kingdom showed in green the portions that had been brought under irrigation, while blue circles marked the towns that owned dispensaries. " I want to bring every man in the State within twenty miles of a dispensary, and I've nearly Letters of Marque 49 done it," said he. Then he checked himself, and went off to food-grains in little bottles as being neutral and colourless things. Envy is forced to admit that the arrangement of the Museum — far too important a matter to be explained off- hand — is Continental in its character, and has a definite pud and bearing— a trifle omitted by many institutions other than Museums. But — in fine, what can one say of a collection whose very labels are gilt-edged ! Shameful extrava- gance ? Nothing of the kind — only finish, per- fectly in keeping with the rest of the fittings — a finish that we in hutcha India have failed to catch. That is all ! From the Museum go out through the city to the Maharaja's Palace — skilfully avoiding the man who would show you the Maharaja's European billiard-room, and wander through a wilderness of sunlit, sleepy courts, gay with paint and frescoes, till you reach an inner square, where smiling grey-bearded men squat at ease and play chaupur — just such a game as cost the Pandavs the fair Draupadi — ^with in- laid dice and gaily lacquered pieces. These an- cients are very polite and will press you to play, but give no heed to them, for chaupur is an ex- pensive game — expensive as quail-fightings when you have backed the wrons: bird and the people 50 Letters of Marque are laughing at your inexperience. The Maha- raja's Palace is arrogantly gay, overwhelmingly rich in candelabra, painted ceilings, gilt mirrors and other evidences of a too hastily assimilated civilisation; but, if the evidence of the ear can be trusted, the old, old game of intrigue goes on as merrily as of yore. A figure in saffron came out of a dark arch into the sunlight, almost fall- ing into the arms of one in pink. " Where have you come from ?" " I have been to see "the name was unintelligible. " That is a lie : you have not!" Then, across the court, some one laughed a low croaking laugh. The pink and saffron figures separated as though they had been shot, and disappeared into separate bolt- holes. It was a curious little incident, and might have meant a great deal or just nothing at all. It distracted the attention of the ancients bowed above the chaupur cloth. In the Palace-gardens there is even a greater stillness than that about the courts, and here nothing of the West, unless a hypercritical soul might take exception to the lamp-posts. At the extreme end lies a lake-like tank swarming with muggers. It is reached through an opening under a block of zenana buildings. Remember- ing that all beasts by the palaces of Kings or the temples of priests in this country would answer Letters of Marque 51 to the name of " Brother," the Englishman cried with the voice of faith across the water, in a key as near as might be to the melodious howl of the " monkey faquir " on the top of Jakko. And the mysterious freemasonry did not fail. At the far end of the tank rose a ripple that grew and grew and grew like a thing in a night- mare, and became presently an aged mugger. As he neared the shore, there emerged, the green slime thick upon his eyelids, another beast, and the two together snapped at a cigar-butt — the only reward for their courtesy. Then, disgusted, they sank stem first with a gentle sigh. 'Sow&mugger's sigh is the most suggestive so\and in animal speech. It suggested first the zenana buildings overhead, the waUed passes through the purple hills beyond, a horse that might clatter through the passes till he reached the Man Sagar Lake below the passes, and a boat that might row across the Man Sagar till it nosed the waU of the Palace-tank and then — then uprose the mug- ger with the filth upon his forehead and winked one homy eyelid — in truth he did ! — and so sup- plied a fitting end to a foolish fiction of old days and things that might have been. But it must be unpleasant to live in a house whose base is washed by such a tank. And so back as Pepys says, through the chu- 52 Letters of Marque named courts, and among the gentle sloping paths between the orange trees, up to an entrance of the Palace guarded hy two rusty brown dogs from Kabul, each big as a man, and each re- quiring a man's eharpoy to sleep upon. Very gay was the front of the Palace, very brilliant were the glimpses of the damask-couched, gilded rooms within, and very, very civilised were the lamp-posts with Earn Singh's monogram, de- vised to look like V. R., at the bottom, and a coronet, as hath been shown, at the top. An un- seen brass band among the orange-bushes struck up the overture of the Bronze Horse. Those who know the music will see at once that that was the only tune which exactly and perfectly fitted the scene and its surroundings. It was a coincidence and a revelation. In his time and when he was not fighting, Jey Singh the Second, who built the city, was a great astronomer — a royal Omar Khayyam, for he, like the tent-maker of Nishapur, reformed a calendar, and strove to wring their mysteries from the stars with instruments worthy of a King. But in the end he wrote that the good- mess of the Almighty was above everything, and died ; leaving his observatory to decay without the Palace-grounds. From the Bronze Horse to the grass-grown Letters of Marqtte 53 enclosure that holds the Tantr Samrat, or Prince of Dials, is rather an abrupt passage. Jey Singh built him a dial with a gnomon some ninety feet high, to throw a shadow against the sun, and the gnomon stands to-day, though there is grass in the kiosque at the top and the flight of steps up the hypotenuse is worn. He built also a zodiacal dial — twelve dials upon one plat- form — to find the moment of true noon at any time of the year, and hollowed out of the earth place for two hemispherical cups, cut by belts of stone, for comparative observations. He made cups for calculating eclipses, and a mural quadrant and many other strange things of stone and mortar, of which people hardly know the names and but very little of the uses. Once, said the keeper of two tiny elephants, In- dur and Har, a Sahib came with the Burra Lat Sahibj and spent eight days in the enclosure of the great neglected observatory, seeing and writ- ing things in a book. But he imderstood San- skrit — the Sanskrit upon the faces of the dials, and the meaning of the gnoma and pointers. Now-a-days no one understands Sanskrit — not even the Pundits ; but without doubt Jey Singh was a great man. The hearer echoed the statement, though he knew nothing of nstronomy, and of all the i4: Letters of Marque wonders in the observatory was only struck by the fact that the shadow of the Prince of Dials moved over its vast plate so quickly that it seemed as though Time, wroth at the insolence of Jey Singh, had loosed the Horses of the Sun and were sweeping everything — dainty Palace- gardens and ruinous instruments — into the darkness of eternal night. So he went away chased by the shadow on the dial, and returned to the hotel, where he found men who said — ^this must be a catch-word of Globe-Trotters — that they were " much pleased at " Amber. They further thought that " house-rent would be cheap in those parts," and sniggered over the witticism. Jey Singh, in spite of a few discred- itable laches, was a temperate and tolerant man ; but he would have hanged those Globe-Trotters in their trunk-straps as high as the Yantr Samrat. Next morning, in the grey dawn, the English- man rose up and shook the sand of Jeypore from his feet, and went with Master Coryatt and Sir Thomas Roe to " Adsmir," wondering whether a year in Jeypore would be sufficient to exhaust its interest, and why he had not gone out to the tombs of the, dead Kings and the passes of Gulta and the fort of Motee Dungri. But what he wondered at most — knowing how many men Letters of Marque 55 who have in any way been connected with the birth of an institution, do, to the end of their da.js, continue to drag forward and exhume their labours and the honours that did not come to them — ^was the work of the two men who, to- gether for years past, have been pushing Jey- pore along the stone-dressed paths of civilisa- tion, peace and comfort. " Servants of the Raj "they called themselves, and surely they have served the Raj past all praise. The pen and tact of a Wilfred Blunt are needed to fitly lash their reticence. But the people in the city and the camel-driver from the sand-hills told of them. They themselves held their peace as to what they had done, and, when pressed, referred — crowning baseness — to reports. Printed ones! 56 Letters of Marque VI. Showing how Her Majesty's Mails went to Udaipur and fell out hy the Way. AKRIVED at Ajmir, the Englishman fell among tents pitched under the shadow of a huge banian tree, and in them was a Punjabi. Now there is no brotherhood like the brother- hood of the Pauper Province; for it is even greater than the genial and unquestioning hos- pitality which, in spite of the loafer and the Globe-Trotter, seems to exist throughout India. Ajmir being British territory, though the in- habitants are allowed to carry arms, is the head- quarters of many of the banking firms who lend to the Native States. The complaint of the Setts to-day is that their trade is bad, because an unsympathetic Government induces the Na- tive States to make railways and become pros- perous. " Look at Jodhpur !" said a gentleman whose possessions might be roughly estimated at anything between thirty and forty-five lakhs. " Time was when Jodhpur was always in debt — and not so long ago, either. Now, they've got a railroad and are carrying salt over it, and, as sure as I stand here, they have a surplus! What Letters of Marqiie 61 can we do ?" Poor pauper ! However, he makes a little profit on the fluctuations in the coinage of the States round him, for every small king seems to have the privilege of striking his own image and inflicting the Great Exchange Ques- tion on his subjects. It is a poor State tliat has not two seers and five different rupees. From a criminal point of view, Ajmir is not a pleasant place. The iN'ative States lie all round and about it, and portions of the district are ten miles off, Xative State-locked on every side. Thus the criminal, who may be a bur- glarious Meena lusting for the money bags of the Setts, or a Peshawari down south on a cold weather tour, has his plan of campaign much simplified. The Englishman made only a short stay in the town, hearing that there was to be a ceremony — tamasha covers a multitude of things — at the capital of His Highness the Maharana of TJdaipur — a town some hundred and eighty miles south of Ajmir, not known to many people beyond Viceroys and their StafEs and the ofiicials of the Rajputana Agency. So he took a Xeemuch train in the very early morn- ing and, with the Punjabi, went due south to Chitor, the point of departure for TJdaipur. In time the Aravalis gave place to a dead, flat, stone-strewn plain, thick with dhak-jungle. 5S Letters of Marque Later the date-palm fraternised with the dhak, and low hills stood on either side of the line. To this succeeded a tract rich in pure white stone, the line was ballasted with it. Then came more low hills, each with comb of splin- tered rock a-top, overlooking dhak- jungle and villages fenced with thorns — places that at once declared themselves tigerish. Last, the huge bulls of Chitor showed itself on the horizon. The train crossed the Gumber Eiver and halted al- most in the shadow of the hills on which the old pride of Udaipur was set. It is difficult to give an idea of the Chitor fortress ; but the long line of brown wall spring- ing out of bush-covered hill suggested at once those pictures, such as the Graphic publishes, of the Inflexible or the Devastation — gigantic men-of-war with a very low free-board plough- ing through green sea. The hill on which the fort stands is ship-shaped and some miles long, and, from a distance, every inch appears to be scarped and guarded. But there was no time to see Chitor. The business of the day was to get, if possible, to Udaipur from Chitor Station, which was composed of one platform, one tele- graph-room, a bench and several vicious dogs. The State of Udaipur is as backward as Jey- pore is advanced — if we judge it by the stand- Letters of Marqiie 69 ard of civilisation. It does not approve of the incursions of Englishmen, and, to do it justice, it thoroughly succeeds in conveying its silent sulki- ness. Still, where there is one English Resi- dent, one Doctor, one Engineer, one Settlement Officer and one Missionary, there must be a mail at least once a day. There was a mail- The Englishman, men said, might go by it if he liked, or h.e might not. Then, with a great sink- ing of the heart, he began to realise that his castx? was of no value in the stony pastures of Mewar, among the swaggering gentlemen who were so lavishly adorned with arms. There was a mail, the ghost of a tonga, with tattered side-cloths and patched roof, inconceivably filthy within and without, and it was Her Majesty's. There was another tonga — an aram tonga — ^but the Englishman was not to have it. It was reserved for a Rajput Thakur who was going to Udaipur with his " tail." The Thakur, in elaret-coloured velvet with a blue turban, a revolver — ^Army pattern — a sword, and five or six friends, also with swords, came by and endorsed the state- ment. Now, the mail tonga had a wheel which was destined to become the Wheel of Fate, and to lead to many curious things. Two diseased yellow ponies were extracted from a dimg-hill and yoked to the tonsra ; and after due delibera- 60 Letters of Marque tion Her Majesty's mail started, the Thakur fol- lowing. In twelve hours, or thereabouts, the seventy miles between Chitor and Udaipur would be ac- complished. Behind the tonga cantered an armed sowar. He was the guard. The Thakur's tonga came up with a rush, ran deliberately across the bows of the Englishman, shipped a pony, and passed on. One lives and learns. The Thakur seems to object to following the for- eigner. At the halting-stages, once in every six miles, that is to say, the ponies were carefully un- dressed and all their accoutrements fitted more or less accurately on to the backs of the ponies that might happen to be near : the released ani- mals finding their way back to their stables alone and unguided. There were no syceSj and the harness hung on by special dispensation of Providence. Still the ride over a good road, driven through a pitilessly stony country, had its charms for a while. At sunset the low hilla turned to opal and wine-red, and the brovra dust flew up pure gold ; for the tonga was run- ning straight into the sinking sun. Now and again would pass a traveller on a camel, or a gang of Bunjarras with their pack-bullocks and their women ; and the sun touched the brasses of Letters of Marque 61 their swords and guns till the poor wretches seemed rich merchants come back from travel- Ung with Sindbad. On a rock on the right hand side, thirty-four great vultures were gathered over the carcase of a steer. And this was an evil omen. They made unseemly noises as the tonga passed, and a raven came out of a bush on the right and answered them. To crown all, one of the hide and skin castes sat on the left hand side of the road, cutting up some of the flesh that he had stolen from the vultures. Could a man desire three more in- auspicious signs for a night's travel ? Twilight came, and the hills were alive with strange noises, as the red moon, nearly at her fuU, rose over Chitor. To the low hills of the mad geolog- ical formation, the tumbled strata that seem to obey no law, succeeded level ground, the pasture lands of Mewar, cut by the Beruch and Wyan, streams running over smooth water-worn rock, and, as the heavy embankments and ample water- ways showed, very lively in the rainy season. In this region occurred the last and most in- auspicious omen of all. Something had gone wrong with a crupper, a piece of blue and white punkah-cord. The Englishman pointed it out, and the driver, descending, danced on that lonely road an unholy dance, singing the while: — 62 Letters of Marque " The dumchi! The dumchi! The dumchi!" in a shrill voice. Then he returned and drove on, while the Englishman wondered into what land of lunatics he was heading. At an aver- age speed of six miles an hour, it is possible to see a great deal of the country; and, under brilliant moonlight, Mewar was desolately beau- tiful. There was no night traffic on the road — no one except the patient sowar, his shadow an inky blot on white, cantering twenty yards behind. Once the tonga strayed into a company of date-trees that fringed the path, and once rattled through a little town, and once the ponies shyed at what the driver said was a rock ; but it jumped up in the moonlight and went away. Then came a great blasted heath whereon nothing was more than six inches high — a wilder- ness covered with grass and low thorn; and here, as nearly as might be midway between Chitor and Udaipur, the Wheel of Tate, which had been for some time beating against the side of the tonga, came off, and Her Majesty's Mails, two bags including parcels, collapsed on the way side; while the Englishman repented him that he had neglected the omens of the vultures and the raven, the low caste man and the mad driver. There was a consultation and an examination of the wheel; but the whole tonga was rotten, Letters of Marque 63 and the axle was smaslied and the axle-pins were bent and nearly red-hot. " It is nothing," said the driver, " the mail often does this. What is a wheel?" He took a big stone and began hammering the wheel proudly on the tyre, to show that that at least was sound. A hasty court- martial revealed that there was absolutely not one single '' breakdown tonga " on the whole road between Chitor and TJdaipur. Now this wilderness was so utterly waste that not even the barking of a dog or the sound of a nightfowl could be heard. Luckily the Thakur had, some twenty miles back, stepped out to smoke by the roadside, and his tonga had been passed meanwhile. The sowar was sent back to find that tonga and bring it on. He cantered into the haze of the moonlight and disappeared. Then said the driver : — " Had there been no tonga behind us, I should have put the mails on a horse, because the Sirkar's dak cannot stop." The Englishman sat down upon the parcels-bag, for he felt that there was trouble coming. The driver looked East and West and said : — " I too will go and see if the tonga can be found, for the Sirkar's dak cannot stop. Meantime, Oh Sahib, do you take care of the mails — one bag and one bag of parcels." So he ran svrif tly into the haze of the moonlight and was lost, and the 64 Letters of Marque Englishman was left alone in charge of Her Majesty's Mails, two unhappy ponies and a lop- sided tonga- He lit fires, for the night was bit- terly cold, and only mourned that he could not destroy the whole of the territories of His High- ness the Maharana of Udaipur. But he man- aged to raise a very fine blaze, before he re- flected that all this trouble was his own fault for wandering into JN'ative States undesirous of Englishmen. The ponies coughed dolorously from time to time, but they could not lift the weight of a dead silence that seemed to be crushing the earth. After an interval measurable by cen- turies, sowar, driver and Thakur's tonga re- appeared; the latter full to the brim and bub- bling over with humanity and bedding. " We will now," said the driver, not deigning to notice the Englishman who had been on guard over the mails, " put the Sirkar's dak into this tonga and go forward." Amiable heathen ! He was going, he said so, to leave the Englishman to wait in the Sahara, for certainly thirty hours and per- haps forty-eight. Tongas are scarce on the Udaipur road. There are a few occasions in life when it is justifiable to delay Her Majesty's Mails. This was one of them. Seating himself upon the parcels-bag, the Englishman cried in Letters of Marque 65 what was intended to be a very terrible voice, but the silence soaked it up and left only a thin trickle of sound, that any one who touched the bags would be hit with a stick, several times, over the head. The bags were the only link be- tween him and the civilisation he had so rashly foregone. Ajid there was a pause. The Thakur put his head out of the tonga and spoke shrilly in Mewari. The Englishman re- plied in English-Urdu. The Thakur withdrew his head, and from certain grunts that followed seemed to be wakening his retainers. Then two men fell sleepily out of the tonga and walked into the night. " Come in," said the Thakur, " you and your baggage. Mv handuq is in that corner ; be careful." The Englishman, taking a mail-bag in one hand for safety's sake — the wilderness inspires an Anglo-Indian Cockney with unreasoning fear — climbed into the tonga, which was then loaded far beyond Plimsoll mark, and the procession resumed its journey. Every one in the vehicle, — it seemed as full as the railway carriage that held Alice. Through the Looking Glass — ^was Sahib and Eazur. Ex- cept the Englishman. He was simple turn, and a revolver, Army pattern, was printing every diamond in the chequer-work of its handle, into his right hip. When men desired him to move. 66 Letters of Marque they prodded him with the handles of tulwars tiE they had coiled him into an uneasy lump. Then they slept upon him, or cannoned against him as the tonga bumped. It was an aram tonga or tonga for ease. That was the bitterest thought of all. In due season the harness began to break once every five minutes, and the driver vowed that the wheels would give way also. After eight hours in one position, it is ex- cessively difficult to walk, still more difficult to climb up an unknown road into a dak-bunga- low ; but he who has sought sleep on an arsenal and under the bodies of burly Kajputs, can do it. The grey dawn brought Udaipur and a French bedstead. As the tonga jingled away, the Englishman heard the familiar crack of broken harness. So he was not the Jonah he had been taught to consider himself all through that night of penance! A jackal sat in the verandah and howled him to sleep, wherein he dreamed that he had caught a "Viceroy under the walls of Chitor and beaten him with a tulwar till he turned into a dak-pony whose near foreleg was perpetually coming off, and who would say nothing but um when he was asked why he had not built a railway from Chi- tor to TJdaipur. Letters of Marque 67 YII. Touching the Children of the Sun and their City, and the Hat-marked Caste and their Merits, and a Good Mans Works in the Wilderness. IT was worth a night's discomfort and a re- volver-bed to sleep upon — ^this city of the Suryavansi, hidden among the hills that en- compass the great Pichola lake. Truly, the King who governs to-day is wise in his determi- nation to have no railroad to his capital. His predecessor was more or less enlightened, and had he lived a few years longer, would have brought the iron horse through the Doharri — the green gate which is the entrance of the Girwa or girdle of hills round Udaipur ; and, with the train, would have come the tourist who would have scratched his name upon the Temple of Gam da and laughed horse-laughs upon the lake. Let us, therefore, be thankful that the capital of Mewar is hard to reach, and go abroad into a new and a strange land rejoicing. Each man who has any claims to respecta- bility walks armed, carrying his tulwar sheathed 68 Letters of Marque in his hand, or hung by a short sling of cotton passing over the shoulder, under his left arm- pit. His matchlock, or smooth-bore if he has one, is borne naked on the shoulder. ISTow it is possible to carry any number of lethal weapons without being actually dan- gerous. An tmhandy revolver, for instance, may be worn for years, and, at the end, accomplish nothing more noteworthy than the murder of its owner. But the Eajput'o weapons are not meant for display. The Englishman caught a camel-driver who talked to him in ilewari, which is a heathenish dialect, something like Multani to listen to; and the man, very grace- fully and courteously, handed him his sword and matchlock, the latter a heavy stump-stock arrangement without pretence of sights. The blade was as sharp as a razor, and the gun in perfect working order. The coiled fuse on the stock was charred at the end, and the curled ram's-hom powder-horn opened as readily as a whisky-flask that is much handled. Unfor- tunately, ignorance of Mewari prevented con- versation; so the camel-driver resumed his ac- coutrements and jogged forward on his beast — a superb black one, with the short curled Tivh- shee hair — ^while the Englishman went to the City, which is built on hills on the borders of Letters of Marque 69 the lake. By the wav, everything in Udaipur is built on a hill. Tbore is no level ground in the plac*, except the Durbar Gardens, of which more hereafter. Beoause colour holds the eye more than form, the tirst thing noticeable was neither temple nor fort, but an ever-recurring picture, painted in the rudest form of native art, of a man on horseback armed with a lance, charging an elephant-of-war. As a rule, the elephant was depicted on one side the house- door and the rider on the other. Thei-e was no representation of an army behind. The figures stood alone upon tlie whitewash on house and wall and gate, again and again and again. A highly intelligent priest grunted that it was a t^zwir; a private of the Maharana's regular army sug- gested that it was a hathi : while a wheat-seller, his sword at his side, was equally certain that it was a Eaja. Beyond that point,, his knowledge did not go. The explanation of the picture is this. In the davs when Raja Maun of Amber p\it his sword at Akbars sevioe and won for him great kingdoms, Akbar sent an army against !Mewar, whose then ruler was Pertap Singh, mof T famous of all the princes of ifewar. Selim, Akbai-'s son, led the army of the Toork ; the Rajputs met them at the pass of Huldighat and fouffht till one-half of their bands were 10 Letters of Marque slain. Once, in the press of battle, Pertap, on his great horse, "Chytak," came within striking distance of Selim's elephant, and slew the ma- hout, but Selim escaped, to become Jehangir afterwards, and the Eajputs were broken. That was three hundred years ago, and men have re- duced the picture to a sort of diagram that the painter dashes in, in a few minutes, without, it would seem, knowing what he is commemorat- ing. Elsewhere, the story is drawn in line even more roughly. Thinking of these things, the Englishman made shift to get at the City, and presently came to a tall gate, the gate of the Sun, on which the elephant-spikes, that he had seen rotted with rust at Amber, were new and pointed and effec- tive. The Oity gates are said to be shut at night, and there is a story of a Viceroy's Gruard-of- Honour which arrived before daybreak, being compelled to crawl ignominiously man by man through a little wicket gate, while the horses had to wait without till sunrise. But a civilised yearning for the utmost advantages of octroi, and not a fierce fear of robbery and wrong, is at the bottom of the continuance of this custom. The walls of the City are loopholed for musketry, but there seem to be no mountings for guns, and the moat without the walls is dry Lctfvrs of Marque Yl and gives cattle pasture. Coarse rubble in con- crete faced with stone, makes the walls moder- ately strong. Internallj. the City is surprisingly clean, though with the exception of the main street, paved after the fashion of Julluudur. of which, luen say, the pavement was put do^vn in the time of Alexander and worn by myriads of naked feet into deep barrels and grooves. In the case of Udaipur, the feet of the passengers have worn the rock veins that crop out everywhere, smooth and shiny ; aud in the rains the narrow gTdlies must spout like fire-hoses. The people have been imtouched by cholera for four years — proof that Providence looks after those who do not look after themselves, for Xeemuch Canton- ment, a hundred miles away, suffered grie\ously last siunmer. " And what do you make in Udai- pur T" "Swords,"' said the man in the shop, throwing down an armful of tulwars. kuHars and l-handas on the stones. " Do you want any I Look here !"' Ilereat, he took up one of the couunoner swords and flourished it in the sun- sliine. Then he bent it double, and, as it sprang straight, began to uuike it "■ speak." Arm- vendors in Udaipur are a genuine race, for they sell to people who really use their wares. The man in the shop was rude — distinctly so. His 72 Letters of Marque first flush of professional enthusiasm abated, he took stock of the Englishman and said calmly : — " What do you want with a sword ?" Then he picked up his goods and retreated, while certain small boys, who deserved a smacking, laughed riotously from the coping of a little temple hard by. Swords seem to be the sole manufacture of the place. At least, none of the inhabitants the Englishman spoke to could think of any other. There is a certain amount of personal violence in and about the State, or else where would be the good of the weapons ? There are occasionally dacoities more or less important; but these are not often heard of and, indeed, there is no special reason why they should be dragged into the light of an unholy publicity, for the land governs itself in its own way, and is always in its own way, which is by no means ours, very happy. The Thakurs live, each in his own cas- tle on some rock-faced hill, much as they lived in the days of Tod; though their chances of dis- tinguishing themselves, except in the school, sewer, and dispensary line, are strictly limited. Nominally, they pay chutoon,d,or a sixth of their revenues to the State, and are tinder feudal obli- gations to supply their Head with so many horsemen per thousand rupees ; but whether the chutoond justifies its name and what is the exact Letters of Marque 73 extent of the '" tail " leviable, thev, and perhaps the Rajputana Agency, alone know. They are quiet, give no trouble except to the wild boar, and personallv are magnificent men to look at. The Kajput sho-ws his breeding in his hands and feet, which are almost disproportionately small, and as well shaped as those of women. His stir- rups and sword-handles are even more unusable by Westerns than those elsewhere in India, while the BhiFs knife-handle gives as large a grip as an English one. Xow the little Bhil is an aborigine which is humiliating to think of. His tongue, which may frequently be heard in the City, seems to possess some variant of the Zvdxi click; which gives it a weird and unearth- ly character. From the main gate of the City the Englishman climbed uphill towards the Palace and the Jugdesh Temple built by one Ja^at Singh at the beginning of the last cen- tury. This building must be — but ignorance is a bad guide — Jain in character. From base- ment to the stone socket of the temple flag-staff, it is carved in high relief with friezes of ele- phants, men, gods, and monsters in wearying profusion The management of the temple have daubed a large portion of tie building with whitewash, for which their revenues should be " cut " for 74 Letters of Marque a year or two. The main shrine holds a large brazen image of Garuda, and, in the corners of the courtyard of the main pile, are shrines to Mahadeo, and the jovial, pot-bellied Ganesh. There is no repose in this architecture, and the entire effect is one of repulsion ; for the clustered figures of man and brute seem always on the point of bursting into unclean, wriggling life. But it may be that the builders of this form of house desired to put the fear of all their many gods into the heart of the worshippers. From the temple whose steps are worn smooth by the feet of men, and whose courts are full of the faint smell of stale flowers and old incense, the Englishman went to the Palaces which crown the highest hill overlooking the City. Here, too, whitewash had been unsparingly ap- plied, but the excuse was that the stately fronts and the pierced screens were built of a perish- able stone which needed protection against the weather. One projecting window in the facade of the main Palace has been treated with Minton tiles. Luckily it was too far up the wall for anything more than the colour to be visible, and the pale blue against the pure white was effective. A picture of Ganesh looks out over the main courtyard which is entered by a triple gate, and Letters of Marque 75 hard by is the place where the King's elephants fight over a low masonry wall. In the side of the hill on which the Palaces stand, is built stabling for horses and elephants — ^proof that the architects of old must have understood their business thoroughly. The Palace is not a *' show place,"' and, consequently, the English- man did not see much of the interior. But he passed through open gardens with tanks and pa- vilions, very cool and restful, till he came sud- denly upon the Pichola late, and forgot alto- gether about the Palace, He found a sheet of steel-blue water, set in purple and grey hills, boimd in, on one side, by marble bunds, the fair white walls of the Palace, and the grey, time- worn ones of the city : and. on the other, fading away through the white of shallow water, and the soft green of weed, marsh, and rank-pas- tiired river field, into the land. To enjoy open water thoroughly, live for a certain number of years barred from anything better than the yearly swell and shrinkage of one of the Five Rivers, and then come upon two and a half miles of solid, restful lake, with a cool wind blowing off it and little waves spitting against the piers of a veritable, albeit hideously ugly, boat house. On the faith of an exile from the Sea, you will not stay long among Palaces, be 76 Letters of Marque they never so lovely, or in little rooms panelled with Dutch tiles, be these never so rare and curious. And here follows a digression. There is no life so good as the life of a loafer who travels by rail and road; for all things and all people are kind to him. From the chUl miseries of a dak-bungalow where they slew one hen with as much parade as the French guillotined Pran- zini, to the well-ordered sumptuousness of the Ilesideney,was a step bridged over by kindly and unquestioning hospitality. So it happened that the Englishman was not only able to go upon the lake in a soft-cushioned boat, with every- thing handsome about him, but might, had he chosen, have killed wild-duok with which the lake swarms. The mutter of water under a boat's nose was a pleasant thing to hear once more. Starting at the head of the lake, he found himself shut out from sight of the main sheet of water in a loch bounded by a sunk, broken bund to steer across which was a matter of some nicety. Beyond that lay a second pool spanned by a narrow- arched bridge built, men said, long before the City of the Eising Sun, which is little more than three hundred years old. The bridge connects the City with Brahmapura — a white-walled en- closure filled with many Brahmins and ringing Letters of Marque 77 vrith. the noise of their conches. Beyond the bridge, the bodv of the lake, with the City run- ning down ti> it, comes into fxill view; and Providence has arranged for the benefit of such as delight in colours, that the Rajputni shall wear the most striking tints that she can buy in the bazaars, in order that she may beautify the ghats where she comes to bathe. The bathing-ledge at the foot of the City wall was lighted with women clad in raw vermilion, , dull red, indigo and eky-blue, saffron and pink and turquoise; the water faithfully doubling evervthing. But the first impression was of the imreality of the sight, for the Englishman found himself thinking of the Simla Fine Arts Exhi- bition and the overdaring amateurs who had striven to reproduce scenes such as these. Then a woman rose up, and clasping her hands be- hind her head, looked at the passing boat, and the ripples spread out from her waist, in blind- ing white silver, far across the water. As a pic- ture, a daringly insolent picture, it would have been superb. The boat turned aside to shores where huge turtles were lying, and a stork had built her a nest, bis; as a hav-cock, in a withered tree, and a bew of coots were flapping and gabbling in the weeds or between great leaves of the Ticioria Begia — 78 Letters of Marque an " escape " from the Durbar Gardens. Here were, as Mandeville hath it, " ah manner of strange fowle " — divers and waders, after their kind, kingfishers and snaky-necked birds of the cormorant family, but no duck. They had seen the guns in the boat and were flying to and fro in companies across the lake, or settling, wise birds, in the glare of the sun on the water. The lake was swarming with them, but they seemed to know exactly how far a twelve-bore would carry. Perhaps their knowledge had been gained from the Englishman at the Residency. Later, as the sun left the lake and the hills be- gan to glow like opals, the boat made her way to the shallow side of the lake, through fields of watergrass and dead lotus-raffle that rose as high as the bows, and clung lovingly about the rudder, and parted with the noise of silk when it is torn. There she waited for the fall of twilight when the duck would come home to bed, and the Englishman sprawled upon the cushions in deep content and laziness, as he looked across to where two marble Palaces floated upon the waters, and saw all the glory and beauty of the City, and wondered whether Tod, in cocked hat and stiff stock, had ever come shooting among the reeds, and, if so, how in the world he had ever managed to bowl over . Letters of Marque 79 " Duck and drake, by Jove ! Confiding beasts, weren't they i Hi ! Lalla. jump out and get them !" It was a brutal thing, this double- barrelled murder perpetrated in the silence of the marsh when the kingly wild-duck came back from his wanderings with his mate at his side, but — but — the birds were very good to eat. After this and many other slaughters had been accomplished, the boat went back in the full ■.hisk, down narrow water-lanes and across belts of weed, disturbing innumerable fowl on the road, till she reached open water and " the moon like a rick afire was rising over the dale," and — it was not the " whit, whit, whit '' of the nightingale but the stately " honk, honk " of some wild geese, thanking their stars that these pestilent shikaris were going away. If the Venetian owned the Pichola Sagar he might say with justice : — " Sec it and die." But it is better to live and go to dinner, and strike into a new life — that of the men who bear the hat-mark on their brow as plainly as the well- born native carries the trmd of Shiva. They are of the same caste as the toilers on the Frontier — tough, bronzed men, with wrin- kles at the comers of the eyes, gotten by looking across much sun-glare. "When they would speak of horses they mention ^ab ponies, and their 80 Letters of Marque talk, for the most part, drifts Bombaywards, or to Abu, which, is their Simla. By these things the traveller may see that he is far away from the Presidency; and wiU presently learn that he is in a land where the railway is an incident and not an indispensable luxury. Eolk tell strange stories of drives in bullock-carts in the rains, of break-dovms in nullahs fifty miles from everywhere, and of elephants that used to sink " for rest and refreshment " half-way across swollen streams. Every place here seems fifty miles from everywhere, and the " legs of a horse " are regarded as the only natural means of locomotion. Also, and this to the Indian Cockney who is accustomed to the bleached or office man is curious, there are to be found many veritable " tiger men " — ^not story-spinners but such as have, in their wanderings from Bikaneer to Indore, dropped their tiger in the way of business. They are enthusiastic over prince- lings of little known fiefs, lords of austere estates perched on the tops of unthrifty hills, hard riders and good sportsmen. And five, six, yes fully nine hundred miles to the northward, lives the sister branch of the same caste — ^the men who swear by Pathan, Biluch and Brahui, with whom they have shot or broken bread. There is a saying in Upper India that the Letters of Marque 81 more desolate the country the greater the cer- tainty of finding a Padre-Sahib. The proverb seems to hold good in Udaipur, where the Scotch Presbyterian Mission have a post, and others at Todgarh to the north and elsewhere. To arrive, xmder Providence, at the cure of souls through the curing of bodies certainly seems the most rational method of conversion ; and this is exactly what the Missions are doing. Their Padre in Udaipur is also an M. D., and of him a rather striking tale is told. Concei^dng that the City could bear another hospital in addition to the State one, he took furlough, went home, and there, by crusade and preaching, raised sufficient money for the scheme, so that none might say that he was beholden to the State. Re- tTirning, he built his hospital, a very model of neatness and comfort and, opening the opera- tion-book, annoimced his readiness to see any one and every one who was sick. How the call was and is now responded to, the dry records of that book will show ; and the name of the Padre- Sahib is honoured, as these ears hare heard, throughout Udaipur and far around. The faith that sends a man into the wilderness, and the secular energy which enables him to cope with an evergrowing demand for medical aid, must, in time, find their reward. If patience and un- 82 Letters of Marque wearying self-sacrifice carry any merit, they should do so soon. To-day the people are will- ing enough to be healed, and the general in- fluence of the Padre-Sahib is very great. But beyond that. . . .Still it was impossible to judge aright Letters of Marque 83 vm. Divers Passages of Speech and Action whence the Mature J Arts and Disposition of the King and his Subjects may he observed. IS this land men tell " sad stories of the deatli of Eangs,"' not easily found elsewhere; and also speak of sati, which is generally sup- posed to be an " effete curiosity " as the Ben- gali said, in a manner which makes it seem very near and vivid. Be pleased to listen to some of the tales, but with all the names cut out, be- cause a King has just as much right to have his family affairs respected as has a British house- holder paying income-tax. Once upon a time, that is to say when the Britisli power was well established in the land and there were railways, there was a King who lay dying for many days, and all, including the Englishmen about him, knew that his end was certain. But he had chosen to lie in an outer court or pleasure-house of his Palace ; and with him were some twenty of his favourite wives. The place in which he lay was very near to the City ; and there was a fear that his womenMnd 84 Letters of Marque should, on his death, going mad with grief, east ofE their veils and run out into the streets, un- covered before all men. In which case, nothing, not even the power of the Press, and the loco- motive, and the telegraph, and cheap education and enlightened mimicipal councils, could have saved them from sati, for they were the wives of a King. So the Political did his best to in- duce the dying man to go to the Fort of the City, a safe place close to the regular zenana, where all the women could be kept within walls. He said that the air was better in the Fort, but the King refused; and that he would recover in the Fort ; but the King refused. After some days, the latter turned and said : — "Why are you so keen. Sahib, upon getting my old bones up to the Fort?" Driven to his last defences, the Political said simply : — " Well, Maharana Sahib, the place is close to the road you see, and . . . . " The King saw and said : — " Oh, that's it ! I've been puzzling my brain for four days to find out what on earth you were driving at. I'll go to-night." " But there may be some difficulty," began the Political. " You think so," said the King. " If I only hold up my lit- tle finger, the women will obey me. Go now, and come back in five minutes, and all will be Letters of Marqiie 85 ready for departm-a." As a matter of fact, the Folitical withdrew for tJie spuw of hi teen min- Tites, and gave orders that the conveyances which he had kept in readiness day and night should be got ready. In fifteen miiuites those twenty women, with their hand-maidens, were packed and ready for departtire ; and the King died later at the Fort, and nothing happened. Here the Englishman asked why a frantic woman must of necessity become .'<'}ti, and felt properly abashed when he was told that she nuisf. There was nothing else for her if she went out unveiled deliberately. The rush-out forces the matter. And, indeed, if you consider the matter from a Rajput point of view, it does. Then followed a very grim tale of the death of another King; of the long vigil by his bed- side, before he was taken o£F the bed to die upon the groimd; of the shutting of a certain mys- terious door behind the bed-head, which shut- ting was followed by a rustle of women': dress : of a walk on the top of the Palace, to escape the heated air of the sick room; and then, in the grey dawn, the wail upon wail breaking from tlie zenana as the news of the King's death went in. *' T never wish to bear anything more horrible and awful in mv life. You could see 86 Letters of Marque nothing. You could only hear the poor wretches !" said the Political with a shiver. The last resting-place of the Maharanas of Udaipur is at Ahar, a little village two miles east of the City. Here they go down in their robes of State, their horse following behind, and here the Political saw, after the death of a Maharana, the dancing-girls dancing before the poor white g,shes, the iiiusicians playing among the cenotaphs, and the golden hookah, sword and water-vessel laid out for the naked soul doomed to hover twelve days round the funeral pyre, before it could depart on its journey to- wards a fresh birth in the endless circle of the Wheel of Fate. Once, in a neighboring State it is said, one of the dancing-girls stole a march in the next world's precedence and her lord's affec- tions, upon the legitimate queens. The affair happened, by the way, after the Mutiny, and was accomplished with great pomp in the light of day. Subsequently those who might have stopped it but did not, were severely punished. The girl said that she had no one to look to but the dead man, and followed him, to use Tod's formula, " through the flames." It would be curious to know what is done now and again among these lonely hills in the walled holds of the Thakurs. Lftfcrs of Marque 87 But to retiim from the buming^roimd to modern Udaipur, as at present worked under the Maharana and his Prime Minister Eao Punna Lai, C. I. E. To begin with, His High- ness is a racial auomaly in that, judged by the strietest European standard, he is a man oi temperate life, the husband of one wife whom he married before he was chosen to the throne after the death of the ilaharana Sujjun Singh iu 1S>4. Siijjim Singh died childless and gave no hint of his desires as to sneeession and — omitting all the genealogical and political rea- sons which would drive a man mad — Futteh Singh was chosen, bv the Thakurs, from the Seorati Branch of the family which Sangram Singh II. foimded. He is thus a younger son of a younger branch of a yoimger family, which lucid statement should snrtiee to explain every- thing. The man who cotdd deliberately unravel the succession of any one of the Rajput States would be perfectly capable of clearing the poli- tics of all the Frontier tribes from Jumrood to Quetta. Roughly speaking, the Maharana and the Prime Minister — in whose family the office has been hereditary for many generations — divide the power of the St;uo. They control. more or lese, the Mahand Raj Sabha or Council 88 Letters of Marque of Direction and Kevision. This is composed of many of the Rawats and Thakurs of the State, and the Poet Laureate who, under a less genial administration, would be presumably the Registrar. There are also District Officers, Officers of Customs, Superintendents of the Mint, Master of the Horses, and Supervisor of Doles, which last is pretty and touching. The State officers itself, and the Englishman's inves- tigations failed to unearth any Bengalis. The Commandant of the State Army, about five thousand men of all arms, is a retired non-com- missioned officer, a Mr. Lonergan ; who, as the medals on his breast attest, has " done the State some service," and now in his old age rejoices in the rank of Major-General, and teaches the Maharaja's guns to make imconmioinly good practice. The infantry are smart and well set up, while the Cavalry — rare thing in Native States — have a distinct notion of keeping their accoutrements clean. They are, further, well mounted on light wiry Mewar and Kathiawar horses. Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the Pathan comes down with his pickings from the Punjab to Udaipur, and finds a market there for animals that were much better em- ployed in — but the complaint is a stale one. Let us see, later on, what the Jodhpur stables Letters of ilarque 89 hold : suid thon formiilate an indictment against the Grovernment. So much for the indigenous administration of Udaipur. The one drawback in the present Maharaja, from the official point of view, is his want of education. He is a thoroughly good man, but was not brought up with a seat on the ffuddee before his eye^. conse- quently he is not an English-speaking man. There is a storvtold of him, which is worrh the repeating. An Englishman who flattereii him- self that he could speak the vemacidar fairly well, paid him a visit and discoursed with a roimd mouth. The Maharana heard him polite- ly, and turning to a satellite, demanded a trans- lation ; which was given. Then said the Ifaha- rana: — " Speak to him in Angrezi." The An- gre ; i' spoken by the interpreter was the vernaeti- lar as the Sahibs speak it, and the Englishman, having ended his conference, departed abashed. But this backwardness is eminently suited to a place like Udaipur, and a " varnished " prince is not always a desirable thing. The curious and even startling simplicity of his life is worth preserving. Here is a specimen of one of his davs. Kisiiig at fotir — and the dawn can be bitterly ciill — ^he bathes and pravs after the custom of his race, and at sis is ready to take in hand the first instalment of the day's work 90 Letters of Marque which comes before him through his Prime Min- ister, and occupies him for three or four hours till the first meal of the day is ready. At two o'clock he attends the Mahand Eaj Sabha, and works till five, retiring at a healthily primitive hour. He is said to have his hand fairly firmly upon the reins of rule, and to know as much as most monarchs know of the way in which the revenues — about thirty lakhs — are disposed of. The Prime Minister's career has been a chequered and interesting one, including, inter alia, a dismissal from power (this was worked from behind the screen), and arrest and an at- tack with words which all but ended in his murder. He has not so much power as his pre- decessors had, for the reason that the present Maharaja allows little but tiger-shooting to distract him from the supervision of the State. Plis Highness, by the way, is a first-class shot, and has bagged eighteen tigers already. He preserves his game carefully, and permission to kill tigers is not readily obtainable. A curious instance of the old order giving place to the new is in process of evolution and deserves notice. The Prime Minister's son, Futteh Lai, a boy of twenty years old, has been educated at the Mayo College, Ajmir, and speaks and writes English. There are few na- Letters of Marque 91 live officials in the State who do this; and the consequence is that the lad has won a very fair insight into Stiite affairs, and knows generally what is gx)ing forward both in the Eastern and Western spheres of the little Court. In time he may qualify for direct administrative powers, and Udaipur will be added to the list of the States that are governed "' English fash '' as the irreverent Americans put it. What the end will be, after three generations of Princes and Dewans have been put through the mill of Eaj- kumar Colleges, those who live vnU. learn- More interesting is the question — Eor how long can the vitality of a people whose life was arms be suspended i Men in the Xorth say that, by the favour of the Government, the Sikh Sii"- diirs are rotting on their lands ; and the Rajput Thakurs say of themselves that they are grow- ing '■ rusty." The old, old problem forces itseK on the most unreflective mind at every turn in the gay streets of Udaipur. A Frenchman might write: — " Behold there the horse of the Kajput — ^foaming, panting, caracoling, but al- ways fettered with his head so majestic upon his bosom so amply tilled with a generous heart. He rages, but he does not advance. See there the destiny of the Rajput who bestrides him, and upon whose left flank bounds the sabre use- 92 Letters of Marque less — ^the haberdashery of the iron-monger only. Pity the horse in reason, for that life there is his raison d'etre. Pity ten thousand times more the Rajput, for he has no raison d'etre. He is an anachronism in a blue turban." The Gaul might be wrong, but Tod wrote things which seem to support this view, in the days when he wished to make " buffer-states " of the land he loved so well. Let us visit the Durbar Gardens, where little naked Cupids are trampling upon fountains of fatted fish, all in bronze, where there are cy- presses and red paths, and a deer-park full of all varieties of deer, besides two growling, fluffy little panther cubs, a black panther who is the Prince of Darkness and a gentleman, and a terrace-full of tigers, bears, and Guzerat lions bought from the King of Oudh's sale. On the best site in the Gardens is rising the Victoria Hall, the foundation-stone of which was laid by the Maharana on the 21st of June last. It is built after the designs of Mr. C. Thompson, Executive Engineer of the State, and will be in the Hindu-Saracenic style ; hav- ing two fronts, west and north. In the former will be the principal entrance, approached by a flight of steps leading to a handsome porch of carved pillars supporting stone beams — ^the flat Letters of Marque 93 Hindii arch. To the left of the entrance hall will be a domed octagonal tower eighty feet high, holding the principal staircase leading to the upper rooms. A corridor on the right of the entrance will lead to the musenm, and immedi- ately behind the entrance hall is the reading- room, 42 by 24 feet, and beyond it the library and office. To the right of the reading-room wiU be an open courtyard with a fountain in the centre, and, beyond the courtyard, the museum — a great hall, one hundred feet long. Over the library and the entrance hall will be private apartments for the Maharana, approached by a private staircase. The communication between the two upper rooms will be by a corridor riin- ning along tie north front having a parapet of delicately cut pillars and cusped arches — ^the latter filled in with open tracery. Pity it is that the whole of this will have to be whitewashed to protect the stone from the weather. Over the entrance-porch, and projecting from the upper room, will be a very elaborately cut balcony sup- ported on handsome brackets. Facing the main entrance will be a marble statue, nine feet high, of the Qiieen, on a white marble pedestal ten feet high. The statue is now being made at home by l\fr.Birch,i?. .1. The cost of the whole will be abo^i^ Ks. 80,000. Now, it is a curious thins that the 94 Letters of Marque statue of Her Majesty will be put some eighty feet below the level of the great bund that holds in the Pichola lake. But the bund is a firm one and has stood for many years. Another public building deserves notice, and that is the Walter Hospital for native women, the foundation-stone of which was laid by the Countess of DufEerin on that memorable occa- sion when the Viceroy, behind Artillery Horses, covered the seventy uiiles from Chitor to TJdai- pur in under six hours. The building, by the same brain that designed the hall, will be ready for occupation in a month. It is in strict keep- ing with the canons of Hindu architecture ex- ternally, and has a high, well-ventilated waiting- room, out of which, to the right, are two wards for in-patients, and to the left a dispensary and consulting-room. Beyond these, again, is a third ward for in-patients. In a courtyard behind are a ward for low caste patients and the offices. When all these buildings are completed, Udaipur will be dowered with three good hos- pitals, including the State's and the Padre's, and a first instalment of civilisation. Letters of Marque 95 IX. Of the Pig-drive which icas a Panih-er-hilling, and of the Departure to Ghitor. ABOVE the Durbar Gardens lie low hills, in which the Maharana keeps, very strictly guarded, his pig and his deer, and anything else that may find shelter in the low scrub or under the scattered boulders. These preserves are scientifically parcelled out with high red-stone walls; and, here and there, are dotted tiny shooting-boxes, in the first sense of the term — masonry sentry-boxes, in which five or six men may sit at ease and shoot. It had been arranged — to entertain the Englishmen who were gath- ered at the Residency to witness the investiture of the King with the G. C. S. I.— that there should be a little pig-drive in front of the Kala Odey or black shooting-box. The Rajput is a man and a brother, in respect that he will ride, shoot, eat pig and drink strong waters like an Englishman. Of the pig-hunting he makes al- most a religious duty, and of the wine-drinking no less. Read how desperately they used to ride in Udaipur at the beginning of the century 96 Letters of Marque when Tod, always in his codsed hat be sure, counted up the tale of accidents at the end of the day's sport. There is something unfair in shooting pig; but each man who went out consoled himself with the thought that it was utterly impossible to ride the brutes up the almost perpendicular hill-side, or down the rocky ravines, and that he individually would only go " Just for the fun of the thing." Those who stayed behind made rude remarks on the subject of *' pork butchers," and the dangers that attend shooting from a balcony. These were treated with the contempt they merited. There are ways and ways of slaying pig — from the orthodox method which begins with " The Boar— The Boar — The mighty Boar!" overnight, and ends with a shaky bridle hand next morn, to the sober and solitary pot-shot, at dawn, from a railway em- bankment running through river marsh; but the perfect way is this. Get a large four-horse break, and drive till you meet an unlimited quantity of pad-elephants waiting at the foot of rich hill-preserves. Mount slowly and with dignity, and go in swinging procession, by the marble-faced border of one of the most lovely lakes on earth. Strike off on a semi-road, semi- hill-torrent path through unthrifty thorny Letters of Mturque 97 jungle, and ao climb np and up and up, till Tou see, spread like a map below, the lake and the Palace and the City, hemmed in by the sea of hills that lies between Udaipur and Moimt Abu a hundred miles away. Then take your seat in a comfortable chair, in a pukka, two-storeyed Grand Stand, with an awning spread atop to keep off the aun, while the Kawat of Amet and the Prime Minister's heir — no less — invite you to take your choice of the many rifles spread on a ledge at the front of the building. This, gen- tlemen who screw your pet ponies at early dawn after the soimder that vanishes into cover soon as sighted, or painfully follow the tiger through the burning heats of Mewar in ilay, this is shooting after the fashion of Ouida — ^in musk and ambergris and patchouli. It is demoralising. One of the best and hardest riders of the Lahore Tent Chib in the old days, as the boars of Bouli Lena Singh knew well, said openly : — ■' This is a first-class hundo- hust" and fell to testing his triggers as though he had been a pot-hunter from his birth. De- rision and threats of exposure moved him not '■ Give me an arm-chair !" said he. " This is the proper way to deal with pig!" And he put up his feet on the ledge and stretched himself. There were many weapons to have choice 98 Letters of Marque among — from the double-barrelled .500 Ex- press, whose btdlet is a tearing, rending shell, to the Eawat of Amet's regulation military Martini-Henri. A profane public at the Resi- dency had suggested clubs and saws as amply sufficient for the work in hand. Herein they were moved by envy, which passion was ten-fold increased when — but this comes later on. The beat was along a deep gorge in the hills, flanked on either crest by stone walls, manned with beaters. Immediately opposite the shooting- box, the wall on the upper or higher hill made a sharp turn do^vnhill, contracting the space through which the pig would have to pass to a gut which was variously said to be from one hundred and fifty to four hundred yards across. Most of the shooting was up or downhill. A philanthropic desire not to murder more Bhils than were absolutely necessary to main- tain a healthy current of human life in the Hilly Tracts, coupled with a well-founded dread of the hinder, or horse, end of a double-barrelled .500 Express which would be sure to go off both barrels together, led the Englishman to take a gunless seat in the background ; while a silence fell upon the party, and very far away up the gorge the heated afternoon air was cut by the shrill tremolo squeal of the Bhil beaters. Now a Letters of Marque 99 man may be m no sort or fashion a shikari — may hold Budhistic objections to the slaughter of living things — but there is somethin;j in the extraordinary noise of an agitated Bhil, which makes even the most peaceful of mortals get up and yearn, like Tartarin of Tarescon for " lions " — always at a safe distance be it under- stood. As the beat drew nearer, under the squealing — the " ul-al-lu-lu-lu" — was heard a long-drawn bittern-like boom of " 8o-oor!" "' So-oor!" and the crashing of boulders. The gims rose in their places, forgetting that each and all had merely come " to see the fim," and began to fumble among the little mounds of partridges under the chairs. Presently, tripping delicately among the rocks, a pig stepped out of a cactus-bush, and — the fusillade began. The dust flew and the branches chipped, but the pig went on — a blue-grey shadow almost undis- tinguishable against the rocks, and took no harm. " Sighting shots," said the guns sulkily ; and the company mourned that the brute had got away. The beat came nearer, and then the listener discovered what the bubbling scream was like ; for he forgot straightway about the beat and went back to the dusk of an Easter Monday in the gardens of the Crystal Palace, before the bombardment of Kars, " set piece ten 100 Letters of Marque thousand feet square," had been illuminated, and about five hundred 'Arries were tickling a thousand 'Arriets. Their giggling and nothing else was the noise of the Bhil. So curiously does Sydenham and Western Kajputana meet. Then came another pig, who was smitten to the death and rolled down among the bushes, draw- ing his last breath in a human and horrible man- ner. But full on the crest of the hill, blown along — ^there is no other word to describe it — ^like a ball of thistle-down, passed a brown shadow, and men cried: — " Bagheera!" or "Panther!" ac- cording to their nationalities, and blazed. The shadow leaped the wall that had turned the pig downhill, and vanished among the cactus. " ]!^ever mind," said the Prime Minister's son consolingly, " we'll beat the other side of the hill afterwards and get him yet." " Oh 1 he's a mile off by this time," said the guns ; but the Rawat of Amet, a magnificently handsome young man, smiled a sweet smile and said nothing. iMore pig passed and were slain, and many more broke back through the beaters who presently came through the cover in scores. They were in rus- set green and red uniform, each man bearing a long spear, and the hillside was turned on the instant to a camp of Robin Hood's foresters. Letters of Marque 101 Then they brought up the dead from behind bxishes and under rocks — among others a tweuty-seven-inch brute who bore on his flank (all pigs shot in a beat are ex-officio boars) a hideous, half-healed scar, big as a man's hand, of a bidlet wound. Express buEets are ghastly things in their effects, for, as the shikari is never tired of demonstrating, they knock the in- side of animals into piilp. The second beat, of the reverse side of the hill, had barely beinni when the panther re- turnd — uneasily, a# if something were keeping her back — ^nmch lower down the hill. Then the face of the Rawat of Amet changed, as he brought his gim up to his shoulder. Looking at him as he fired, one forgot all about the Mayo College at which he had been educated, and re- membered only some trivial and out-of-k of Cliitor Tvliicli, after one look, the Englishman abandoned. One cannot " do "■ C-hitor with a guide-bo<.ik. The Padre of the English Mission to Jehangir said the best that was to be said, when he described the place three hundred years airo, vrritiiiir quaintly: — " Ohitor, an an- cient great kingdom, the chief city so called •which standeth on a mighty high hill, flat on the top. walled about at the least ten English miles. There appear to this day above a hundred ruined churches and divers fair palaces which are lodged in like manner among their ruins, as many Englishmen by the observation have guessed. Its chief inhabitants to-day are Zum and Ohini, birds and wild beasts, but the stately ruins thereof give a shadow of its beauty while it flotirished in its pride." Gerowlia struck into a narrow patliway, forcing herself through garden-trees and disturbin