picture; a
private of the Maharana's regular army suggested that it was an
elephant; while a wheat-seller, his sword at his side, was equally
certain that it was a Raja. Beyond that point, his knowledge did not go.
The explanation of the picture is this. In the days when Raja Maun of
Amber put his sword at Akbar's service and won for him great kingdoms,
Akbar sent an army against Mewar, whose then ruler was Pertap Singh,
most famous of all the princes of Mewar. Selim, Akbar's son, led the
army of the Toork; the Rajputs met them at the pass of Huldighat and
fought till one-half of their band was slain. Once, in the press of
battle, Pertap on his great horse, Chytak, came within striking distance
of Selim's elephant, and slew the mahout, but Selim escaped, to become
Jehangir afterwards, and the Rajputs were broken. That was three hundred
years ago, and men have reduced the picture to a sort of diagram that
the painter dashes in, in a few minutes, without, it would seem, knowing
what he is commemorating.

Thinking of these things, the Englishman made shift to get to the city,
and presently came to a tall gate, the gate of the Sun, on which the
elephant-spikes, that he had seen rotted with rust at Amber, were new
and pointed and effective. The City gates are said to be shut at night,
and there is a story of a Viceroy's Guard-of-Honour which arrived before
daybreak, being compelled to crawl ignominiously man by man through a
little wicket-gate, while the horses had to wait without till sunrise.
But a civilised yearning for the utmost advantages of octroi, and not a
fierce fear of robbery and wrong, is at the bottom of the continuance of
this custom. The walls of the City are loopholed for musketry, but there
seem to be no mounting for guns, and the moat without the walls is dry
and gives cattle pasture. Coarse rubble in concrete faced with stone
makes the walls moderately strong.

Internally, the City is surprisingly clean, though with the exception of
the main street, paved after the fashion of Jullundur, of which, men
say, the pavement was put down in the time of Alexander and worn by
myriads of naked feet into deep barrels and grooves. In the case of
Udaipur, the feet of the passengers have worn the rock veins that crop
out everywhere, smooth and shiny; and in the rains the narrow gullies
must spout like fire-hoses. The people have been untouched by cholera
for four years, proof that Providence looks after those who do