o do.

Hardly has the enthusiastic amateur sat down to delineate the stately pile
of the palace, soaring aloft amid its enveloping greenery, than he is
attracted by a fascinating glimpse of the lake, where, perhaps, a royal
elephant comes down to drink, or a crimson-clad bevy of Rajputni lasses
stoop to fill their brazen chatties with much chatter and laughter.

Bewildered by such wealth of subject, one is but too apt to sit at gaze,
and finally go home with merely a dozen pages of scribbles added to the
little canvas jotting-book!

The Palace of the Maharana is a very splendid pile of buildings, as seen
from some little distance crowning the ridge which rises to the south of
the lake, but it loses much of its beauty when closely viewed. It is, of
course, not to be compared architecturally with the master-works of Agra
and Delhi, and the internal decorations are usually tawdry and
uninteresting. The entrance is fine; the visitor ascends the steep street
to the principal gate, a massive portal, strengthened against the
battering of elephants by huge spikes, and decorated by a pair of these
animals in fresco-rampant. Beyond the first gate rises a second or inner
gate. On the right are huge stables where the royal elephants are kept,
and on the left stand a row of curious arches, beneath one of which the
Maharanas of old were wont to be weighed against bullion after a victory,
the equivalent to the royal avoirdupois being distributed as largesse to
his people!

Within the gates, a long and wide terrace stretches along the entire front
of the Palace, on the face of which is emblazoned the Sun of Mewar, the
emblem of the Sesodias. This terrace was evidently the happy home of a
great number of cows, peacocks, geese, and pigeons, which stalked calmly
enough, among the motley crowd of natives, and gave one the impression of
a glorified farmyard. The building itself, like most Indian palaces, is
composed of a heterogeneous agglomeration in all sorts of sizes and styles.
Each successive Maharana having apparently added a bit here and a bit
there as his capricious fancy prompted.

Jane visited the armoury to-day with the Resident, who went to choose a
shield to be presented by the Maharana to the Victoria Museum at Calcutta.
I chose to go sketching, and was derided by Jane for missing such a chance
of seeing what is not shown to visitors as a rule. She whisked away in
great pomp in the Residential chariot, preceded by two pran