CHITORGARH AND UDAIPUR
From Ajmir there is a branch line to Chitorgarh and Udaipur, and no
traveller in India should miss the opportunity of visiting both these
highly interesting places. Leaving Ajmir, the railway runs south
through a rather flat country, passing Naisirabad, an important British
military station. The English “Tommy” in khaki, and white helmet and
putties, or the sun-burned, brown-booted and spurred British cavalry
officer, were in evidence at the railway station. Among the native
crowd here we saw a turbaned man in pink carrying a very thin, aged
woman, probably his mother, pick-a-back fashion.
A very dry and almost desert tract of country is traversed after this,
though occasionally varied by irrigated fields and green crops. The
irrigation wells, worked by oxen as before, and the native ploughing,
were the chief incidents in the landscape. The plough is a very
primitive-looking implement with a single shaft, with a cross handle
fixed at right angles to the shaft, which consists of a sharpened piece
of wood, tipped with iron. The plough is drawn by a pair of zebus,
and is light enough for the man to lift up and turn at the end of the
furrow, or even to be carried home on his shoulder at the end of the
day. There were thick hedges of spikey sort of cactus, branching out
from a main stem, something like candelabra, the fronds growing in a
longitudinal, rigid form. These hedges fenced the railway line from the
fields on the desert. Another plant of common occurrence, both here and
all over India, was a broad-leaved shrub of symmetric order, having
small, pale, lilac flowers, the stems rather a yellow, and the leaves a
lightish blue green. We noted also a sort of wild laburnam. The prickly
pear was common, and a sort of prickly acacia-like shrub much liked by
camels. The trees were mostly various acacias, the banyan tree (Ficus),
and the teak. In places we saw both date and cocoa palms. At one
station (Mandal) the level plains, with pyramidal hills in the distance
and a grove of palms and camels in the foreground, again recalled Egypt.
The cultivated crops we passed were cotton, tobacco, rice, wheat, and
sugar cane.
At every station may be seen the water filter, a wooden tripod stand,
holding three red earthen water-jars, one above the other. The natives
drink quantities of water, and always carry a small drinking-vessel
of bright brass, which they take every opportunity of filling. The
water-bearer is a characteristic figure everywhere, and comes up to the
train with his cry, “Panee! panee!” which (with an Italian prepossessed
ear) is more suggestive of another, and solid, necessary of life.
Bread, however, in Hindustanee, happens to be “roti.”
Having left Ajmir by the 9.20 A.M. train, we arrived at Chitorgarh
about five in the evening, and put up at the station rooms for the
night. There was a considerable crowd on the long, open, gravelled
platform, mainly natives, with a small contingent of English and
American tourists. European tourists in India, however, were generally
few and far between, the United States being much more numerously
represented. A picturesque group was formed by a native resident from
Udaipur, with his retinue, waiting for their train on. The chief was
a venerable and a kindly-looking man, with white hair and beard,
reminding one rather of the late G. F. Watts. He was gaily dressed in
a pink turban and a lilac silk coat, and was seated on a chair on the
platform, surrounded by his attendants in scarlet; among these was his
trumpeter, with a bugle slung around him, and a quad of four soldiers
in khaki and turbans.
We found the Traveller’s Bungalow was about three-quarters of a mile or
so away from the station. The bedrooms were all taken by the English
and American parties, but we could feed there, so, retaining our
quarters at the station, we walked to the Bungalow for our dinner.
It was a lovely moonlight night, with bright stars, but there was a
cold north wind as we were guided by our bearer with a lantern along
a rather rough track, and crossed the railway to the Bungalow, a new
stone building, bare and cheerless as they make them, standing all by
itself in a stoney yard without a tree near it. The dinner, or supper,
was not very rewarding, and we trudged back again to the station in the
cold moonlight. The station we found quieter than usual. The servants
of the resident had encamped upon the platform, and formed picturesque
groups around fires, cooking and gossiping; their master sleeping in
the train, which was drawn up ready to start for Udaipur early the next
morning.
It seems highly necessary for travellers in India anywhere off the
track of hotels to provide themselves with bedding of some sort, at
least quilts, rugs, sheets, and pillows. The nights at this time of
year in Rajpootana are quite cold, and warm wraps are welcome.
The next morning we engaged a large elephant—which waited at the
station to take travellers to Chitorgarh—to carry us to the fort and
deserted city on the height we could see from the station. This was a
distance of some seven miles there and back, it was said.
[Illustration: FIRST ELEPHANT RIDE. (CHITORGARH)]
The elephant was made by the driver to kneel while we mounted, by means
of a ladder of bamboo, and seated ourselves on the flat, cushioned
seat, having a low hand-rail and a foot board, slung by ropes. The
elephant moved with a peculiar swaying, swinging movement, not unlike
that of a ship, though regular. We started over a stretch of rough,
common-like ground, broken into hillocks and hollows, overgrown with
scrub bush, the track not being very definite. The elephant picked its
way most carefully over the rough parts, especially when descending a
hollow. We reached a roadway which led over a bridge across a river,
and brought us up to the city of Chitor at the foot of the hill, and
extending upon its lower slopes. We entered the city through a Moslem
arched gateway, and threaded our way through the narrow streets,
our elephant filling the whole of the roadway. Pottery, beads, glass
bracelets, cheap lacquered ornaments, and small merchandise of various
kinds were spread out on the ground, their proprietors squatting by
their stock in trade. The native houses were small and low, for the
most part hardly more than huts of mud, roofed with sun-baked tiles,
laid scalewise over a trellis of bamboo, often very dilapidated. There
were remains of better houses and older, with arcaded balconies, and
here and there we passed a small white-washed temple, with quaint
elephants with gay housings painted in profile on the white walls
each side the entrance. These elephants are drawn in a very spirited
manner, and are generally represented going at a trot, and full of
action with trunk and tail in the air, decorated with bells on his feet
and gorgeous red and yellow housings and domed howdah, set off by the
solid black of the elephant and his ivory tusks, the turbaned driver
flourishing his goad. From our commanding eminence, the elephant’s
back, we could take a comprehensive survey of the life of the city,
and see the people at work at various trades. The inhabitants did not
take much notice of us; some would stare and others would salaam as we
passed. I imagine the elephant with European travellers on its back
not infrequently passed through Chitor, although we managed to startle
a tethered camel in one of the streets considerably, and the animal
tugged at its rope and plunged alarmingly at the sight of our elephant.
Leaving the city of Chitor, which seemed very poverty-stricken, we
reached the first gate of the fortress, and began the ascent of some
200 or 300 feet. The road zigzags up the side of the rocky plateau,
upon the summit of which the fort and ancient city were built, the
ancient capital of Rajpootana. Massive walls protect this road on the
outer side, and a continuous warder’s walk runs along it, with flights
of stone steps to the roadway at intervals. We passed through five
gateways on the way up, generally enriched with sculptured ornament—the
last one, Ram Pol, being the richest, and this was finely carved
with Hindu detail and symbols, having friezes of elephants. There
have been extensive restorations at Chitorgarh. The whole length of
the wall seems to have been gone over, and replastered, and in many
places rebuilt with new stone. The tops of the gates were crenellated
in a fashion which suggested a perpetuation in stone of an earlier
type of wooden palisading, a horizontal band connecting the rounded or
pointed stone heads, the divisions between each being continued below
it. In many cases the old massive wooden gates were left under the
archways, bound with old iron bands. By the way, at Ajmir we noted that
the wooden doors of the gateways to the courts were covered with old
horse-shoes nailed on, close together, in some instances actually over
the old rich carved work, and apparently with the same idea of good
omen as is associated with the same emblem in our country.
Arrived at the summit there were wonderful ruins to be seen. Scattered
over the plateau, half overgrown, amid heaps of shattered stones and
carved fragments, there were the remains of Mohammedan palaces and
Hindu or Jain Temples, rich within and without with intricate carving.
The guides showed us where the Hindu Queen and the women of the city,
all suffocated themselves in a subterranean chamber to escape their
fate had they fallen into the hands of the Mohammedan conquerors, when
Ala-ud-din took Chitor by storm in 1290.
The hand of the restorer was seen here again and had been in some
parts rather too thorough. I noticed an arcade over the gateway of the
Moslem Palace, which seemed to have been entirely rebuilt in a kind of
pale green marble, almost the colour of jade, quite sharply cut and
new, and out of keeping with the old work more or less battered and
ruined around it. The famous Tower of Victory had been extensively
restored, even the carving in parts recut. This is going too far, as
it is impossible to unite modern workmanship with old, even in India.
Watchful and careful, timely repair is the only way to preserve ancient
buildings, but there should be no attempt made to replace lost carving
and decoration by modern imitation.
We entered over broken steps a wonderful Jain temple, very richly
carved, with a remarkable domed ceiling over the central chamber,
arranged in a series of concentric circles, intersected by figures of
dancing girls, with emblems radiating from the centre. Another Jain
temple formed a most picturesque pile, and a delightful mass of light
and shade filled in with intricate detail, in the full sunlight. In
these temples a favourite deity is Ganesha, the elephant-headed god,
whose carved image constantly appears.
In one part of the ancient city we came upon some natives preparing
cotton yarn for hand-weaving. The yarn was stretched in long lengths
across horizontal canes supported by vertical ones. They seemed to be
cleaning the threads with combs and brushes. The little black-bristled
hand-brushes placed on the top of the turbaned heads when not in use
had a very quaint effect.
Having explored the ruins of Chitorgarh, we remounted our good
elephant, which waited for us, and descended, moving rather joltingly
down the long hill, and frightening a pony and a camel tethered in the
main street of Chitor. The sun was now blazing, it being noontide,
though tempered by the still cool wind from the north, which we had
found really cold in the morning.
Returning the way we had come to our quarters at the station, after
taking tiffin at the bungalow we arranged to go on to Udaipur in the
morning, and were advised to sleep in the train, which waited in the
station all night, and left at 6.20 A.M. for Udaipur. So we packed up
and went on board and took our berths, which were on the whole more
comfortable than the station beds.
In the morning our compartment was invaded by a young Indian who wanted
a seat, but we had kept it to ourselves during the night, which was
cold enough, and we were glad of all our wraps. The young Indian was a
pleasant, bright, and intelligent young fellow who spoke English well,
well clad in the style of a native gentleman, with plenty of wraps and
overcoats. He was obviously curious about us, and wanted to know all we
would tell him. He seemed to have a great wish to see London, and asked
us about the cost of living there, and whether a Hindu could live there
according to his religion without meat. He described India as “a poor
country,” and wondered that we should journey so far to see it. He was
bound for some town where his father lived, sixty miles by tonga from
Udaipur, being under orders not to stop at the latter place, as his
father had told him there was plague there, and wished him to come on.
The train passed through a very flat and rather cheerless country,
exceedingly dry, and for the most part covered with long jungle grass,
but varied here and there by green crops under irrigation.
Camels were occasionally seen, generally ridden by two men; also there
were many herds of oxen and buffaloes. As usual, there were many
interesting types and groups to be observed at the stations.
Approaching Udaipur, the country broke into hills and became more
interesting. We reached Udaipur Station about 11.30, and bidding
good-bye and exchanging cards with the young Hindu, we parted with our
baggage into a little open cart called a “tum-tum,” and were driven
some distance, along a dusty road, to the Udaipur Hotel, which looked
like an expanded bungalow with a second storey added on. Here we found
pleasant quarters and decent beds.
At the table-d’hôte there was a rather frigid Anglo-Indian family, a
colonel on a tour of official inspection and his secretary and their
ladies; also a voluble American lady, whom we had seen at Ajmir, and a
rather lofty and superior English military man and his wife, who, we
were afterwards informed, were the guests of the Maharajah.
In meeting one’s compatriots aboard or indeed anywhere without an
introduction one is reminded by their manner strongly of the Oxford Don
who could not do anything to save an unfortunate undergraduate from
drowning because “he had not been introduced.”
Here, in a remote part of India, chance had thrown half-a-dozen English
people together at the same table, and yet they would hardly speak
to each other, that is to say to any new-comer outside their own
party. Nothing, however, daunts the American traveller, especially the
American lady. She ignores the social ice, or if she perceives it she
boldly breaks it with a hatchet, as it were, rushing in under the guns
of the most frigid and unapproachable personalities with a cheerful and
persistent fire of conversation, popping in leading questions with the
most artless and childlike confidence. This mode of attack generally
succeeds, too, apparently. I have seen severe English official and
military-looking men, after some show of resistance, unconditionally
surrender, and presently empty their intellectual pockets on the demand
of these light-hearted, table-d’hôte, globe-trotting inquisitors.
A picturesque feature of hotel life in India is the impromptu bazaar
formed under the arcade, which always shades the rooms on the ground
floor, by the travelling merchants, who spread out their wares to tempt
the traveller.
In Rajpootana, the land of warriors, collections of arms, swords,
sword-sticks, knives and daggers, and fearsome and wonderful blades
of all sorts form a conspicuous part of the stock-in-trade of these
native merchants, the glittering steel making a brave show with the
bright-coloured stuffs, jewellery, and embroideries. At Udaipur they
offered also native pictures, painted in tempera, somewhat crude but
distinctly decorative, and complete with painted borders or frames.
They represented elephants, tigers, maharajahs sabring wild swine,
and such-like, painted in profile in frank flat colours, the animals
singularly faithful in silhouette to nature. In dealing with these
travelling traders, bargaining is, of course, expected, and usually
they are willing to accept about half the price originally asked.
[Illustration: RAJPUTS AND THEIR RARITIES. (UDAIPUR)]
An impressive sight at Udaipur is the place of tombs, or the
burning-place, which is a beautiful garden surrounded by a high wall,
full of magnificent domed tombs and cenotaphs. This is the place where
the Kings of Udaipur, since it became the capital of Rajpootana,
have been buried, or rather cremated, with their wives. The city of
Udaipur—a glimpse of which, with its crenellated walls and the huge
pile of the Maharajah’s palace rising above the trees, is seen from the
hotel—is entered, after a short drive through a fine double gateway.
A huge old mango tree grows over the street just inside. Udaipur is a
white town; the streets are very picturesque, having arcaded bazaars
and pretty fantastic balconies here and there, and the native life is
of course very varied and full of colour. The main street rises up to
the eminence on which the palace stands. At an angle before this is
reached, a steep flight of white steps leads up to the gate of the
court of the great temple of Juggernath—a Jain temple dedicated to
Vishnu—the second person in the Hindu Trinity. It was the finest of
its kind we have yet seen. We were allowed to walk around the court
and examine the carvings, but not inside the temple. Two great stone
elephants stand facing one another at the entrance to the court—a
similar arrangement to that noted at Ellora. There is an elaborate
shrine over the gateway in which is a seated bronze or brass figure of
Vishnu with his lotus flower, snakes, and other emblems. The exterior
of the temple is a wonderful mass of carving. On the plinth was a
continuous narrow frieze of elephants on a small scale, having the
effect of a richly carved moulding; above this was a line of horses,
all saddled and bridled but without riders; above this again was a band
of human figures. Over these were carved on a larger scale a series of
figures of dancing-girls in different attitudes. These dancers always
form an important element in the carved decoration of Jain temples.
We next visited the palace of the Maharajah, which occupies the highest
ground in the city of Udaipur. It is a vast, romantic-looking pile.
The steep street leads the traveller up to a great arched gateway, and
through this is entered a large oblong court. On the right, the vast
white palace walls rise to a great height, with hardly any windows, but
high up are seen fairy-like arcades, balconies, and domed minarets,
glittering with blue tile-work and gold.
A native custodian conducted us over the Palace. Entering an inner
court, we ascended a steep stone staircase at an angle, the treads
rising about nine or twelve inches high. There were native paintings
on the walls of richly caparisoned state elephants bearing maharajahs,
tigers, and other figures. We passed through a succession of rooms and
courts at different levels, the walls of white marble inlaid with a
very fine sort of glass mosaic, not tessellated but let in in pieces
cut large or small according to the forms to be expressed. These were
generally figures always in severe profile, in elaborate costume,
and jewels the details of which were carefully and richly rendered.
Flowers and delicate palm trees varied the designs, done in the same
way, the leaves and small component parts being cut complete in the
glass. There were also formal floral borders outlining the arches of
the arcades, and forming ceiling patterns in some of the rooms, and on
the walls were hung in frames delicate paintings on vellum, heightened
with gold, such as one sees in old Indian illuminated MSS. In some of
the corridors it was rather a shock to see inserted in the windows
pieces of crudely stained European glass, such as were in vogue in
conservatories here in the “forties.” One room was entirely decorated
with coloured glass, the walls being veneered with a zigzag pattern in
red and white glass.
Other and smaller rooms in the Zenana quarters, which we had now
reached, and all at the top storey of the Palace, were lined with old
Dutch tiles, others again with Chinese blue and white tiles. These
rooms had graceful, arcaded balconies which commanded extensive views.
We had a bird’s-eye view of the palace courts and the stable yards,
where elephants were tethered in long rows, the busy natives moving
about with horses and oxen. Beyond were seen the clustering, small
white houses with flat roofs, broken by domes here and there, the green
wooded country and the hills far away, while on the other side of the
palace the lake with its pavilioned islands mirrored the sunset framed
in the blue mountains.
At night we frequently heard the weird cries of the jackals which prowl
around most places in India after dark, and when all is quiet in human
habitations. It is a very wild, shrill sound, rising almost to a shriek
at times. We also thought we caught another note—the laughter of the
hyena.
[Illustration: THE MAHARAJAH’S PALACE AT UDAIPUR. FROM THE JAGMANDIR
PAVILION]
A charming excursion by boat may be made to the palace of Jagmandir,
which occupies the whole of an island on the lake, a fairy-like
pavilion enclosing luxuriant palms and fruit trees within its courts
and gardens in which one realised the architecture and scenery of the
Arabian Nights.
We reached the lakeside through a fine triple-arched gate which led
to a flight of steps descending into the water. Here a striking scene
burst upon us. A crowd of dark Hindu women thronged the steps, clad for
the most part in rich red saris of different tones, varied by orange
and purple drapery and the glitter of their silver bangles and anklets.
They were busy cleaning their brass water jars, scrubbing and polishing
them on the steps at different levels; some standing in the water,
whilst others, filling their vessels and poising them on their heads,
would move away stately and erect, like walking caryatids.
Presently a rather heavy boat with two native oarsmen, which had been
summoned by our guide moved from the palace to the steps and we, with
our bearer, embarked, and were rowed over to the enchanting island
and the fairy-like palace of Jagmandir where Shah Jehan lived when in
revolt against his father, Jahangir. On the way we rowed around another
island showing white arcades and domes emerging from green bowery
foliage of mangoes and palms.
Landing at the steps we found the Jagmandir a most lovely place, full
of arcaded courts, and marble pavements, pointed windows and balconies
and marble walls enclosing green gardens full of roses, and palms,
and plantains, a kingly pavilion, displaying all the invention and
refinement of Mogul art. Inside, too, the palace was full of interest.
There was a charming little painted chamber, the walls treated in a
sort of tapestry manner with Indian scenes and decorative landscapes
rich with trees and varied with all the characteristic birds and
animals (the white cranes on the mango tree which we had seen in
reality at Ahmedabad were there) kites and crows, and antelopes, and
the Maharajah and his horsemen hunting the tiger amid these painted
forests and jungles. On one wall the Maharajah himself was painted
at full length in profile in a white turban and dress also white
embroidered with gold, with a gold nimbus about his head as he is
supposed to be descended from Rama, and is considered a sacred person
connected with the sun—a large sun face modelled and gilded appears on
the palace wall.
Another room was said to have been painted by a French artist. He had
taken the lotus as a motive and had tuned it into a formal scroll
pattern in the frieze, but it was not a success, and had not the
interest or the spirit or decorative instinct of the native artist.
The chief salon had Parisian carpets on the floor, and a dreadful blue
glass chandelier, and other horrors in glass and furniture of Western
origin. Opening out of this salon was a bedroom raised a step or two on
a higher level and the principal feature here was a large bedstead in
glass and silver! On the walls of one of the courts was a decoration in
gesso inlaid with glass, which was both delicate and effective. There
were figures decoratively treated in severe profile, combined with
trees and flowers somewhat Persian in feeling and similar in style to
some we had seen in the Maharajah’s palace.
From the landing-place I made a sketch of that palace in the sunlight
reflected in the calm waters of the lake. Then, at noon we rowed back
to the town and returned in our tonga to the hotel.
Another of the sights of Udaipur is to see the Maharajah’s wild pigs
fed. He has an arena near the town for the cruel sport of pig-sticking,
but keeps vast herds of pigs upon the mountain sides at the head of the
lake. It is a beautiful drive to the spot through the city and out at a
further gate, and through groves and along a terrace-like road by the
lakeside, to a white building on a high ground overlooking the wooded
and rocky mountain side, partially covered with low forest; there from
a terrace we could see many swine feeding. They are like a small kind
of wild boar, but differing in size, and very fierce, bristling their
backs and charging one another over the food, which was Indian corn,
scattered broadcast among them by two natives, one carrying the sack
of grain and the other distributing it from a sort trencher. There
was a sort of Brobdingnagian mouse-trap on the ground, presumably to
catch the boars in, when wanted for the arena. There were but few boars
at first to be seen, but they seemed to know the feeding time, and
gradually gathered in large numbers, and when the grain was scattered,
by their constant rushes after it and violent charges with each others
soon raised such a thick cloud of dust that they became lost to view
as in a thick mist, and could only hear their hoofs scraping over
the rocky ground, and their savage grunts and squeaks. A number of
peacocks hovered on the outskirts on the look out for stray grain as
well as blue rocks and crows which often perched on the hogs’ backs!
The terrace from which we surveyed this strange scene was really the
parapeted flat roof of the keeper’s dwelling. A flight of steps led up
to a higher terrace which surrounded a deep sort of bear-pit, where a
select family of hogs seemed to be treated with peculiar distinction.
Not for these the fierce struggle for grain upon the mountain side,
when the battle was to the strong; no, these were fed upon a special
food—a sort of large brown rissole composed of buttermilk and
sugar-cane; but the hogs were fat and did not devour these attractive
morsels, even with half the zest which their less favoured relatives
outside ate up the scattered maize. The reason of the comparative
luxury in which these selected hogs lived, we learned, was that they
had fought with tigers, and thus were treated as superior beings, by
order of the Maharajah.
The wooded shores of the lake and the mountains beyond were very
beautiful in the still evening atmosphere, as we drove back to Udaipur,
the road by the lake being so narrow that two carriages could not pass,
and, meeting the Resident, we had to pull in to one side to let his
carriage get by.
There was a charming view of Udaipur from our hotel seen through the
trees, the massive Maharajah’s palace dominating the city, and bathed
in the roseate early morning sunlight it looked particularly lovely.
I worked at a sketch of this on Christmas morning; I remember, having
to be up at seven o’clock in order to catch the effect, which soon
changed. We had the most brilliant moonlight nights here, too.
We visited the Maharajah’s gardens where was a sort of Zoo. There
were some handsome tigers in rather small cages, hogs, leopards, one
lion, deer, guinea-pigs, geese, cockatoos, and other birds and beasts,
including some melancholy dogs of various breeds, chained at intervals
around a courtyard. These were supposed to be in hospital.
From the Zoo we drove through a fine wooded park to the Museum called
the Victoria Institute, where a native curator showed us round. It
was a white building in the Moslem style but quite new. It included
a library in which was placed a bad statue of our late Queen. There
were modelled heads in coloured plaster, ranged in cases numbered and
ticketed, of all the Hindu castes, each with their proper caste mark
upon their foreheads. There was a miscellaneous collection otherwise,
native arts and industries and antiquities, as well as European,
being represented very sparsely. The whole thing had a sort of forced
and artificial character in such surroundings and was quite empty of
visitors. We were, however, early there.
In driving through the gate of the city, a funeral passed us—a band
of young men bearing on a stretcher the corpse which was swathed in
red cotton and tightly bound up like a mummy. The bearers moved at
a quick, almost jaunty pace, approaching a trot, and with them were
other natives who chanted a sort of song. If it was an equivalent for
a dirge it was quite a cheerful one—but then the Hindus, as well as
the Mohammedans and Indians, look upon death as a happy translation
to another existence, and the accompaniments of gloom to which we are
accustomed in Christian countries have no existence here.
We departed, on Christmas Day in the morning, from Chitor and Ajmir
again, returning by the way we came. Udaipur is at the end of the
branch line from Ajmir which has not I believe been in existence many
years.
On the way to the station I noticed some very primitive huts clustered
in a group on a rising ground above the road. They almost exactly
resembled the huts of the early Britons and Gauls as they appear on
Trajan’s column, being circular in form, built of mud or sun-baked
bricks and roofed with a sort of rude thatch laid over a bamboo
trellis. In this land of wonders and contrasts truly, one sees
everything both in customs and dwellings from the most primitive to the
most elaborate and luxurious, from the most ancient to the most modern
forms of life. It is sad to note, however, that at least as far as the
outward aspects of life are concerned, all that Western contact seems
to have done for the people of India is to introduce corrugated iron,
Manchester cotton, and the kerosene can—with petrol and its smell!
At Udaipur station there was a great native crowd of every variety of
type, wonderful in colour and costume. Many of the men carried sabres
as well as walking-sticks which seem to be the marks of superior caste
in Rajputana. There were, too, the usual crowd of poorer travellers
with their extraordinary bundles and brown babies. A native woman stood
on the platform with a huge sheaf of sugar-cane which she sold in
pieces to the travellers, and, of course, there were the sweet stuff
sellers, and the inevitable betel-nut.
Reaching Chitorgarh in the late afternoon the old fort with its zigzag
walled road looked quite familiar, and at the station our elephant was
in waiting again.
We could not get on to Ajmir until night, and so did not arrive
there until about 5.30 in the morning. Coming from a plague-stricken
district passengers were not allowed to leave the train until a medical
inspection had taken place. An English doctor with a native attendant
bearing a lantern came round and went through the farce of feeling
everybody’s pulse before anybody was allowed to leave the station. We
only stopped, however, to get some tea and await a train for Jaipur,
our next destination.