urwana_. But it was only a
wild cat after all; and it fled before the shoes of civilisation.

The Sukh Mahal was completely separated from the city, and might have
been a country-house. It should be mentioned that Boondi is jammed into
a V-shaped gorge--the valley at the main entrance being something less
than five hundred yards across. As it splays out, the thickly packed
houses follow its lines, and, seen from above, seem like cattle herded
together preparatory to a stampede through the gate. Owing to the set of
the hills, very little of the city is visible except from the Palace. It
was in search of this latter that the Englishman went abroad and became
so interested in the streets that he forgot all about it for a time.
Jeypore is a show-city and is decently drained; Udaipur is blessed with
a State Engineer and a printed form of Government; for Jodhpur the dry
sand, the burning sun, and an energetic doctor have done a good deal,
but Boondi has none of these things. The crampedness of the locality
aggravates the evil, and it can only be in the rains which channel and
furrow the rocky hillsides that Boondi is at all swept out. The Nal
Sagar, a lovely little stretch of water, takes up the head of the
valley called Banda Gorge, and must, in the nature of things, receive a
good deal of unholy drainage. But setting aside this weakness, it is a
fascinating place--this jumbled city of straight streets and cool
gardens, where gigantic mangoes and peepuls intertwine over gurgling
watercourses, and the cuckoo comes at midday. It boasts no foolish
Municipality to decree when a house is dangerous and uninhabitable. The
newer shops are built into, on to, over, and under time-blackened ruins
of an older day, and the little children skip about tottering arcades
and grass-grown walls, while their parents chatter below in the crowded
bazaar. In the black slums, the same stones seem to be used over and
over again for house-building. Wheeled conveyances are scarce in Boondi
city--there is scant room for carts, and the streets are paved with
knobsome stones, unpleasant to walk over. From time to time an inroad of
_Bunjaras'_ pack-bullocks sweeps the main streets clear of life, or one
of the Raja's elephants--he has twelve of them--blocks the way. But, for
the most part, the foot-passengers have all the city for their own.

They do not hurry themselves. They sit in the sun and think, or put on
all the arms in the family, and, hung with i