at there
was to be a ceremony--_tamasha_ covers a multitude of things--at the
capital of His Highness the Maharana of Udaipur--a town some hundred and
eighty miles south of Ajmir, not known to many people beyond Viceroys
and their Staffs and the officials of the Rajputana Agency. So he took a
Neemuch train in the very early morning and, with the Punjabi, went due
south to Chitor, the point of departure for Udaipur. In time the
Aravalis gave place to a dead, flat, stone-strewn plain, thick with
dhak-jungle. Later the date-palm fraternised with the dhak, and low
hills stood on either side of the line. To this succeeded a tract rich
in pure white stone--the line was ballasted with it. Then came more low
hills, each with a cock's comb of splintered rock, overlooking
dhak-jungle and villages fenced with thorns--places that at once
declared themselves tigerish. Last, the huge bulk of Chitor showed
itself on the horizon. The train crossed the Gumber River and halted
almost in the shadow of the hills on which the old pride of Udaipur was
set.

It is difficult to give an idea of the Chitor fortress; but the long
line of brown wall springing out of bush-covered hill suggested at once
those pictures, such as the _Graphic_ publishes, of the _Inflexible_ or
the _Devastation_--gigantic men-of-war with a very low free-board
ploughing through green sea. The hill on which the fort stands is
ship-shaped and some miles long, and, from a distance, every inch
appears to be scarped and guarded. But there was no time to see Chitor.
The business of the day was to get, if possible, to Udaipur from Chitor
Station, which was composed of one platform, one telegraph-room, a
bench, and several vicious dogs.

The State of Udaipur is as backward as Jeypore is advanced--if we judge
it by the standard of civilisation. It does not approve of the
incursions of Englishmen, and, to do it justice, it thoroughly succeeds
in conveying its silent sulkiness. Still, where there is one English
Resident, one Doctor, one Engineer, one Settlement Officer, and one
Missionary, there must be a mail at least once a day. There was a mail.
The Englishman, men said, might go by it if he liked, or he might not.
Then, with a great sinking of the heart, he began to realise that his
caste was of no value in the stony pastures of Mewar, among the
swaggering gentlemen, who were so lavishly adorned with arms. There was
a mail, the ghost of a tonga, with tattered side-cloths and