X.

_A little of the History of Chitor, and the Malpractices of a

She-elephant._

There is a certain want of taste, an almost actual indecency, in seeing

the sun rise on the earth. Until the heat-haze begins and the distances

thicken, Nature is so very naked that the Actæon who has surprised her

dressing, blushes. Sunrise on the plains of Mewar is an especially

brutal affair.

The moon was burnt out and the air was bitterly cold, when the

Englishman headed due east in his tonga, and the patient sowar behind

nodded and yawned in the saddle. There was no warning of the day’s

advent. The horses were unharnessed, at one halting-stage, in the thick,

soft shadows of night, and ere their successors had limped under the

bar, a raw and cruel light was upon all things so that the Englishman

could see every rent seam in the rocks around--see “even to the

uttermost farthing.” A little further, and he came upon the black bulk

of Chitor between him and the morning sun. It has already been said

that the Fort resembles a man-of-war. Every distant view heightens this

impression, for the swell of the sides follows the form of a ship, and

the bastions on the south wall make the sponsions in which the

machine-guns are mounted. From bow to stern, the thing more than three

miles long, is between three and five hundred feet high, and from

one-half to one-quarter of a mile broad. Have patience, now, to listen

to a rough history of Chitor.

In the beginning, no one knows clearly who scarped the hill-sides of the

hill rising out of the bare plain, and made of it a place of strength.

It is written that, eleven and a half centuries ago, Bappa Rawul, the

demi-god whose stature was twenty cubits, whose loin-cloth was five

hundred feet long, and whose spear was beyond the power of mortal man to

lift, took Chitor from “Man Singh, the Mori Prince,” and wrote the first

chapter of the history of Mewar, which he received ready-made from Man

Singh who, if the chronicles speak sooth, was his uncle. Many and very

marvellous legends cluster round the name of Bappa Rawul; and he is said

to have ended his days, far away from India, in Khorasan, where he

married an unlimited number of the Daughters of Heth, and was the father

of all the Nowshera Pathans. Some who have wandered, by the sign-posts

of inscription, into the fogs of old time, aver that, two centuries

before Bappa Bawul took Chitor, the Mori Division of the Pramar Rajputs,

who are the ruling family of Mewar, had found a hold in Bhilwar, and for

four centuries before that time had ruled in Kathiawar; and had royally

sacked and slain, and been sacked and slain in turn. But these things

are for the curious and the scholar, and not for the reader who reads

lightly. Nine princes succeeded Bappa, between 728 and 1068 _A. D._, and

among these was one Alluji, who built a Jain tower upon the brow of the

hill, for in those days, though the Sun was worshipped, men were Jains.

And here they lived and sallied into the plains, and fought and

increased the borders of their kingdom, or were suddenly and stealthily

murdered, or stood shoulder to shoulder against the incursions of the

“Devil men” from the north. In 1150 _A. D._ was born Samar Singh, and he

married into the family of Prithi Raj, the last Hindu Emperor of Delhi,

who was at feud, in regard to a succession question, with the Prince of

Kanauj. In the war that followed, Kanauj, being hard pressed by Prithi

Raj and Samar Singh, called Shahabuddin Ghori to his aid. At first,

Samar Singh and Prithi Raj broke the army of the Northmen somewhere in

the Lower Punjab, but two years later Shahabuddin came again, and, after

three days’ fighting on the banks of the Kaggar, slew Samar Singh,

captured and murdered Prithi Raj, and sacked Delhi and Amber while Samar

Singh’s favorite queen became _sati_ at Chitor. But another wife, a

princess of Patun, kept her life, and when Shahabuddin sent down

Kutbuddin to waste her lands, led the Rajput army, in person, from

Chitor, and defeated Kutbuddin.

Then followed confusion, through eleven turbulent reigns, that the

annalist has failed to unravel. Once in the years between 1193 and the

opening of the fourteenth century, Chitor must have been taken by the

Mussalman, for it is written that one prince “recovered Chitor and made

the name of Rana to be recognized by all.” Six princes were slain in

battles against the Mussalman, in vain attempts to clear far away Gya

from the presence of the infidel.

Then Ala-ud-din Khilji, the Pathan Emperor, swept the country to the

Dekkan. In those days, and these things are confusedly set down as

having happened at the end of the thirteenth century, a relative of Rana

Lakhsman Singh, the then Rana of Chitor, had married a Rajput princess

of Ceylon--Pudmini, “And she was fairest of all flesh on earth.” Her

fame was sung through the land by the poets, and she became, in some

sort, the Helen of Chitor. Ala-ud-din heard of her beauty and promptly

besieged the Fort. When he found his enterprise too difficult, he prayed

that he might be permitted to see Pudmini’s face in a mirror, and this

wish, so says the tale, was granted. Knowing that the Rajput was a

gentleman he entered Chitor almost unarmed, saw the face in the mirror,

and was well treated; the husband of the fair Pudmini accompanying him,

in return, to the camp at the foot of the hill. Like Raja Runjeet in the

ballad the Rajput--

“ ...trusted a Mussalman’s word

Wah! Wah! Trust a liar to lie!

Out of his eyrie they tempted my bird,

Fettered his wings that he could not fly.”

Pudmini’s husband was caught, and Ala-ud-din demanded Pudmini as the

price of his return. The Rajputs here showed that they too could scheme,

and sent, in great state, Pudmini’s litter to the besiegers’

entrenchments. But there was no Pudmini in the litter, and the following

of handmaidens was a band of seven hundred armed men. Thus, in the

confusion of a campfight, Pudmini’s husband was rescued, and

Ala-ud-din’s soldiery followed hard on his heels to the gates of Chitor,

where the best and bravest on the rock were killed before Ala-ud-din

withdrew, only to return soon after and, with a doubled army, besiege in

earnest. His first attack men called the half-sack of Chitor, for,

though he failed to win within the walls, he killed the flower of the

Rajputs. The second attack ended in the first sack and the awful _sati_

of the women on the rock.

When everything was hopeless and the very terrible Goddess, who lives in

the bowels of Chitor, had spoken and claimed for death eleven out of the

twelve of the Rana’s sons, all who were young or fair women betook

themselves to a great underground chamber, and the fires were lit and

the entrance was walled up and they died. The Rajputs opened the gates

and fought till they could fight no more, and Ala-ud-din the victorious

entered a wasted and desolated city. He wrecked everything excepting

only the palace of Pudmini and the old Jain tower before mentioned. That

was all he could do, for there were few men alive of the defenders of

Chitor when the day was won, and the women were ashes in the underground

palace.

Ajai Singh, the one surviving son of Lakhsman Singh, had, at his

father’s insistence, escaped from Chitor to “carry on the line” when

better days should come. He brought up Hamir, son of one of his elder

brothers, to be a thorn in the side of the invader, and Hamir overthrew

Maldeo, chief of Jhalore and vassal of Ala-ud-din, into whose hands

Ala-ud-din had, not too generously, given what was left of Chitor. So

the Sesodias came to their own again, and the successors of Hamir

extended their kingdoms and rebuilt Chitor, as kings know how to rebuild

cities in a land where human labour and life are cheaper than bread and

water. For two centuries, saith Tod, Mewar flourished exceedingly and

was the paramount kingdom of all Rajasthan. Greatest of all the

successors of Hamir, was Kumbha Rana who, when the Ghilzai dynasty was

rotting away and Viceroys declared themselves kings, met, defeated, took

captive, and released without ransom, Mahmoud of Malwa. Kumbha Rana

built a Tower of Victory, nine stories high, to commemorate this and the

other successes of his reign, and the tower stands to-day a mark for

miles across the plains. Of this, more hereafter.

But the well-established kingdom weakened, and the rulers took

favourites and disgusted their best supporters--after the immemorial

custom of too prosperous rulers. Also they murdered one another. In 1535

_A. D._ Bahadur Shah, King of Gujarat, seeing the decay, and remembering

how one of his predecessors, together with Mahmoud of Malwa, had been

humbled by Mewar in years gone by, set out to take his revenge of Time

and Mewar then ruled by Rana Bikrmajit, who had made a new capital at

Deola. Bikrmajit did not stay to give battle in that place. His chiefs

were out of hand, and Chitor was the heart and brain of Mewar; so he

marched thither, and the Gods were against him. Bahadur Shah mined one

of the Chitor bastions and wiped out in the explosion the Hara Prince of

Boondee with five hundred followers. Jowahir Bae, Bikrmajit’s mother

headed a sally from the walls and was slain. There were Frank gunners

among Bahadur Shah’s forces, and they hastened the end. The Rajputs made

a second _johur_ greater than the _johur_ of Pudmini; and thirteen

thousand were blown up in the magazines, or stabbed or poisoned, before

the gates were opened and the defenders rushed down.

Out of the carnage was saved Udai Singh, a babe of the Blood Royal, who

grew up to be a coward and a shame to his line. The story of his

preservation is written large in Tod, and Edwin Arnold sings it. Read

it, who are interested. But, when Udai Singh came to the throne of

Chitor, through blood and mis-rule, after Bahadur Shah had withdrawn

from the wreck of the Fort, Akbar sat on the throne of Delhi, and it was

written that few people should withstand the “Guardian of Mankind.”

Moreover, Udai Singh was the slave of a woman. It was Akbar’s destiny to

subdue the Rajputs and to win many of them to his own service; sending a

Rajput Prince of Amber to get him Arrakan. Akbar marched against Chitor

once and was repulsed; the woman who ruled Udai Singh heading a charge

against the besiegers because of the love she bore to her lover.

Something of this sort had happened in Ala-ud-din’s time, and, like

Ala-ud-din, Akbar returned and sat down, in a huge camp, before Chitor

in 1568 _A. D._ Udai Singh fled what was coming; and because the Goddess

of Chitor demands always that a crowned head must fall if the defence of

her home is to be successful, Chitor fell as it had fallen before--in a

_johur_ of thousands, a last rush of the men, and the entry of the

conqueror into a reeking, ruined slaughter-pen. Akbar’s sack was the

most terrible of the three, for he killed everything that had life upon

the rock, and wrecked and overturned and spoiled. The wonder, the

lasting wonder, is that he did not destroy Kumbha Rana’s Tower of

Victory and memorial of the defeat of a Mahomedan prince. With the third

sack the glory of Chitor departed, and Udai Singh founded himself a new

capital, the city of Udaipur. Though Chitor was recovered in Jehangir’s

time by Udai Singh’s grandson, it was never again made the capital of

Mewar. It stood and rooted where it stood, till enlightened and loyal

feudatories in the present years of grace, made attempts, with the help

of Executive Engineers, to sweep it up and keep it in repair. The above

is roughly, very roughly indeed, the tale of the sacks of Chitor.

Follows an interlude, for the study even of inaccurate history is

indigestible to many. There was an elephant at Chitor, to take birds of

passage up the hill, and she--she was fifty-one years old and her name

was Gerowlia--came to the dak-bungalow for the Englishman. Let not the

word dak-bungalow deceive any man into believing that there is even

moderate comfort at Chitor. Gerowlia waited in the sunshine, and

chuckled to herself like a female pauper when she receives snuff. The

_mahout_ said that he would go away for a drink of water. So he walked,

and walked, and walked, till he disappeared on the stone-strewn plains,

and the Englishman was left alone with Gerowlia aged fifty-one. She had

been tied by the chain on her near hind-leg to a pillar of the verandah;

but the string was _moonj_ string only, and more an emblem of authority

than a means of restraint. When she had thoroughly exhausted all the

resources of the country within range of her trunk, she ate up the

string and began to investigate the verandah. There was more _moonj_

string, and she ate it all, while the _mistri_ who was repairing the

dak-bungalow cursed her and her ancestry from afar. About this time the

Englishman was roused to a knowledge of the business, for Gerowlia,

having exhausted the string, tried to come into the verandah. She had,

most unwisely, been pampered with biscuits an hour before. The _mistri_

stood on an outcrop of rock and said angrily:--“See what damage your

_hathi_ has done, Sahib!” “’Tisn’t my _hathi_,” said the Sahib

plaintively. “You ordered it,” quoth the _mistri_, “and it has been here

ever so long, eating up everything.” Herewith he threw pieces of stone

at Gerowlia and went away. It is a terrible thing to be left alone with

an unshackled elephant, even though she be a venerable spinster.

Gerowlia moved round the dak-bungalow, blowing her nose in a nervous

and undecided manner and, presently, found some more string, which she

ate. This was too much. The Englishman went out and spoke to her. She

opened her mouth and salaamed; meaning thereby “biscuits.” So long as

she remained in this position she could do no harm.

Imagine a boundless rock-strewn plain, broken here and there by low

hills, dominated by the rock of Chitor and bisected by a single,

metre-gauge railway track running into the Infinite, and unrelieved by

even a way-inspector’s trolly. In the fore-ground put a brand-new

dak-bungalow furnished with a French bedstead and nothing else; and, in

the verandah, place an embarrassed Englishman, smiling into the open

mouth of an idiotic female elephant. But Gerowlia could not live on

smiles alone. Finding that no food was forthcoming, she shut her mouth

and renewed her attempts to get into the verandah and ate more _moonj_

string. To say “H!” to an elephant is a misdirected courtesy. It

quickens the pace, and, if you flick her on the trunk with a wet towel,

she curls the trunk out of harm’s way. Special education is necessary. A

little breechless boy passed, carrying a lump of stone. “Hit on the

feet, Sahib!” said he; “Hit on the feet!” Gerowlia had by this time

nearly scraped off her pad and there were no signs of the _mahout_. The

Englishman went out and found a tent-peg, and returning, in the

extremity of his wrath, smote her bitterly on the nails of the near

forefoot.

Then, as Rider Haggard used to say--though the expression was patented

by at least one writer before he made it his own--a curious thing

happened. Gerowlia held up her foot to be beaten, and made the most

absurd noises--squawked, in fact, exactly like an old lady who has

narrowly escaped being run over. She backed out of the verandah, still

squawking, on three feet and in the open held up near and off forefoot

alternately to be beaten. It was very pitiful, for one swing of her

trunk could have knocked the Englishman flat. He ceased whacking her,

but she squawked for some minutes and then fell placidly asleep in the

sunshine. When the _mahout_ returned, he beat her for breaking her

tether exactly as the Englishman had done, but much more severely, and

the ridiculous old thing hopped on three legs for fully five minutes.

“Come along, Sahib!” said the _mahout_, “I will show this mother of

bastards who is the _mahout_. Fat daughter of the Devil, sit down! You

would eat string, would you? How does the iron taste?” And he gave

Gerowlia a headache, which affected her temper all through the

afternoon. She set off, across the railway line which runs below the

rock of Chitor, into broken ground cut up with _nullahs_ and covered

with low scrub, over which it would have been difficult to have taken a

sure-footed horse--so fragmentary and disconnected was its nature.