so of plain which
spread in deceptive smoothness between us and the ascent to the city. What
seemed a serene and level track became quickly entangled in a maze of
rough little knobs and nullahs, and we took a vast amount of exercise
before arriving at the old bridge which spans the Gamberi River.

Meanwhile, towering over the scrubby bushes and surrounded by a dusty halo,
the dilatory pachyderm bore down upon us, and, after the mahout had been
interviewed in unmeasured terms by my host, went rolling slowly to the
station to pick up the ladies.

The ancient city of Chitor lies crumbling and desolate on the back of a
long, level-topped hill, which rises solitary to the height of some five
hundred feet above the far-stretching plain. Kipling likens it to a great
ship, up the sides of which the steep road slopes like a gangway. At the
foot lies the modern village, squalid but picturesque.

As we toil, perspiring, up the long ramp which for a weary mile slopes
sidelong up the scarped flank of the mountain, and pass through the seven
gates which guarded the way, and every one of which was the scene of many
a grim and bloody struggle, I will try to sketch the outline of the
history of the famous fort, for many centuries the headquarters of the
royal race of Mewar.

The Gehlotes, or (as they were afterwards styled) the Sesodias, claim
descent from the Sun through Manu, Icshwaca, and Rama Chandra, as indeed
do the other Rajput potentates of Jaipur, Marwar, and Bikanir, the Rana of
Mewar, however, taking precedence owing to his descent from Lava, the
eldest son of Rama.

The ancient dynasty of Mewar has fallen from its high estate, but the
history of its rise is lost in the mists of grey antiquity.

"We can trace the losses of Mewar, but with difficulty her acquisitions....
She was an old-established dynasty when all the other States were in
embryo." Long before Richard of the Lion-heart fared to Palestine to wrest
the Holy City from the infidel, "a hundred kings, its (Mewar's) allies and
dependants, had their thrones raised in Chitor," to defend it against the
sword of the Mohammedan; while overhead floated the banner displaying the
golden sun of Mewar on a crimson field.

Some centuries later the Crusaders brought to Europe from the plains of
Palestine the novel device of armorial bearings.

Chitor itself appears to have been in possession of the Mori princes until,
in A.D. 728, it was taken by Bappa, who, though of ro