haraja, and the people who make India their prey, are
apt to accept his services as a matter of course.

Rise very early in the morning, before the stars have gone out, and
drive through the sleeping city till the pavement gives place to cactus
and sand, and educational and enlightened institutions to mile upon mile
of semi-decayed Hindu temples--brown and weather-beaten--running down to
the shores of the great Man Sagar Lake, wherein are more ruined temples,
palaces, and fragments of causeways. The water-birds have their home in
the half-submerged arcades and the crocodile nuzzles the shafts of the
pillars. It is a fitting prelude to the desolation of Amber. Beyond the
Man Sagar the road of to-day climbs up-hill, and by its side runs the
huge stone causeway of yesterday--blocks sunk in concrete. Down this
path the swords of Amber went out to kill. A triple wall rings the city,
and, at the third gate, the road drops into the valley of Amber. In the
half light of dawn, a great city sunk between hills and built round
three sides of a lake is dimly visible, and one waits to catch the hum
that should arise from it as the day breaks. The air in the valley is
bitterly chill. With the growing light, Amber stands revealed, and the
traveller sees that it is a city that will never wake. A few beggars
live in huts at the end of the valley, but the temples, the shrines, the
palaces, and the tiers-on-tiers of houses are desolate. Trees grow upon
and split the walls, the windows are filled with brushwood, and the
cactus chokes the street. The Englishman made his way up the side of the
hill to the great palace that overlooks everything except the red fort
of Jeighur, guardian of Amber. As the elephant swung up the steep roads
paved with stone and built out on the sides of the hill, he looked into
empty houses where the little grey squirrel sat and scratched its ears.
The peacock walked on the house-tops, and the blue pigeon roosted
within. He passed under iron-studded gates whose hinges were eaten out
with rust, and by walls plumed and crowned with grass, and under more
gate-ways, till, at last, he reached the palace and came suddenly into a
great quadrangle where two blinded, arrogant stallions, covered with red
and gold trappings, screamed and neighed at each other from opposite
ends of the vast space. For a little time these were the only visible
living beings, and they were in perfect accord with the spirit of the
spot. Afterwards