In our travels through India we met comparatively few of our own countrymen and women. The English (or the British) have not as yet taken much to touring in the Empire of which such a proud boast is constantly made. The English in India are usually residents connected with civil or military posts. They go out to take up their official duties, and directly they get leave they rush “home”—England is always spoken of as “home,” even by residents in India of long standing. It generally happens that the officials and their families are quartered at some particular station in a particular district, and may remain there all their time, so that the English resident in India generally does not see any other parts of the great peninsular, and is not acquainted with the country beyond his own district. A tourist, therefore, in a few months may have a more complete general or even particular acquaintance with India at large, as regards its great cities and famous monuments, than many a resident who has spent the best part of his life in one station, and who always takes his leave at “home.”

French tourists are occasionally met with, but Americans are the most numerous, and they are met with everywhere. The early morning train we had taken from Ajmir to Jaipur was invaded by a party of no less than forty of our Transatlantic cousins, who overflowed it and filled our compartment with an incredible amount of hand baggage. They seemed to be, as far as one could make out, connected with some mission. They reminded me rather of a gathering in one of the cities of the United States at which I was present (Philadelphia, I think), where one of my American friends remarked, “Now, all these you see here are types, but none of them are worth studying”!

The country traversed between Ajmir and Jaipur is mostly plain, and very desert-like in places, with distant mountain ranges beyond, not unlike Arizona in general character. Green crops under irrigation are, however, occasionally seen, and among them not unfrequently may be noticed a pair of large, grey-plumaged cranes, feeding in the young corn, which do not take to flight at the approach of the train. We reached Jaipur about noon and put up at Rustom’s Hotel, a comparatively short drive from the station. The hotel stands in the middle of a large enclosure divided by a low wall from the high road. Tents are pitched along one side of the building to afford extra sleeping accommodation, and a sort of bungalow annexe is prepared to take overflow guests. From pleasant rooms on the terrace we had a view of the Tiger Fort and the road with its constant procession of natives, ox-carts, and camels and horsemen trooping into the city about a mile off. A row of tall acacia trees screened the late afternoon sun, and barred-like fretwork the golden light of afterglow, and we often watched the peacocks flying up to roost among the branches, their beautiful forms silhouetted against the orange sky between the interstices of the leaves.

The native proprietor, or manager, during the preliminary ceremony of taking our names, and in getting a form of application to the Resident filled up for permission to visit the Maharajah’s palace and the palace at Amber, made polite speeches, expressing himself only anxious for “our ease and comfort”—of course without any thought of prospective rupees. Clusters of native huts built of mud with thatched roofs occur at frequent intervals around Jaipur outside the city walls; from our terrace at the hotel we could see several. There was apparently a small village within a stone’s-throw. One evening the strains of what sounded like a native chant or song in chorus were wafted to us from this village, and we heard that a native wedding was going on there; but the illusion was somewhat destroyed when we learned that the supposed native music proceeded from the mouth of a gramophone! It is said that special ones are now prepared for the Indian market with popular native songs and music—another boon from the West.

Jaipur is a city within high crenellated walls, built of rubble and plastered with cement. The same form of palisade-like battlement crested the walls here as at Chitorgarh, and is the common form in Mogul defensive buildings. Among the native huts which cluster outside the walls, I noticed some of wicker; many of the huts, too, had wicker screens—a sort of lattice-work made of bamboo—covering the otherwise open fronts.

Jaipur is known as the rose-coloured city. The Maharajah must be very fond of pink, in fact he may be said to have “painted the town red.” The whole of the main fronts of the houses facing the streets are distempered in a kind of darkish rose pink—really red—the rosy hue being largely due to the luminous atmosphere in the full sunlight, and it becomes still rosier in the flush of evening. It is dark enough at anyrate to show a decoration of lines of floral devices and patterns painted in white upon the red walls. The whole scheme, no doubt, was suggested by the red sandstone buildings inlaid with white marble which are the glory of Delhi and Agra. It is not a sort of imitation calculated to deceive any one, however, but clearly a scheme of painted decoration emulating the effect of the solid materials mentioned. The city has, owing to this treatment, a very distinctive scenic aspect of its own, and is very striking, the brilliant and varied pattern of vivid colour in the costume of the natives in the bazaars, with this roseate background, producing quite a unique effect. One has, however, after a time an impression of unreality and unsubstantiality, as of stage scenery which will presently be shifted. The Maharajah of Jaipur has the reputation of being very advanced and modern in his ideas. He has at anyrate set up gasworks in his city, which also possesses a large public garden laid out in the European manner, and is both horticultural and zoological, and contains a museum and a bronze statue of Lord Mayo.

It seems rather a mistake, in a climate like that of India, to lay out grounds with broad serpentine paths and drives unshaded by trees, and vast lawns which can only be kept up with a pretence of greenness by constant and laborious watering. It is another of the mistaken foreign importations. The Eastern type of garden, on the other hand, is quite appropriate and adapted to the necessities of the climate. Its characteristics are narrow, straight paths between closely planted groves of trees, acacias, plantains, palms, and fruit trees, and varied with tanks and fountains, and cool marble pavilions, the whole enclosed in a protecting wall like an earthly paradise.

It does not cheer the English traveller in the East—at least I never heard that it did—to see a low wall surmounted by a cast-iron railing and common-place but pretentious gates, enclosing a joyless “public garden” of a British vestry type.

The proprietors of the art depots in the bazaars of Jaipur are very enterprising, and resort to all kinds of allurements to induce the traveller to enter and purchase. To begin with, the tourist in his carriage is peppered with a perfect hail of white business cards flung at him by active touts, who are always on the alert for the passing stranger in the bazaars, who receives such seductive invitations as “See my shop?”—“Very nice things”—“Don’t want you to buy—only to look!”

We visited a large art-dealer’s store. It was prettily arranged around a small covered court, lighted from the top. An arcade divided a series of rooms along each side, both on the ground and on a second floor. This court was richly carpeted and furnished with seats, coffee tables, and divans. One device of the proprietor or manager was to invite prospective customers to witness a dance of nautch girls in this court, presumably to conduce to a favourable mood for extensive purchases.

At this place was a great display of Jaipur enamels, applied in a variety of ways from small jewellery to large, chased, brass dishes and trays. I saw a large dish prepared by the native craftsman (who was sitting at work at the entrance) for champlÉvÉ enamel, very deftly chased, though the modern reproductions of the traditional Indian patterns strike one as rather mechanical. The skill of the craftsman is there, but the feeling and initiative of the artist is too often wanting. Rajput arms and armour hung on the white walls of the court, and there was an immense stock of all sorts of metal-work and jewellery, mostly modern, and numbers of small portable articles in brass, evidently meant for the eye and the pocket of the tourist; amongst these were quantities of small pierced brass boxes in the form of cushions. I saw some interesting old Indian miniature pictures from MSS.—one of a rajah shooting a bow: he was standing upon a globe which rested on the back of an ox, which again stood upon the back of a fish.

There were some suits of chain mail of extraordinary fineness, and wonderful engraved blades of many kinds. Besides the well-known Jaipur enamelled jewellery there was a quantity of precious stones—garnets, amethysts, sardonyx, onyx, and jade. Another speciality of Jaipur work are the charming spherical rolling lamps. These are spheres of brass chased and pierced all over with floral pattern, and made to open. Inside, by a very ingenious bit of mechanism, a small lamp is so suspended that it always maintains a horizontal position, and though the sphere may be rolled along the ground it never upsets the lamp within. They are used in the temples at festival times. These lamps are made at the Art School at Jaipur, where many native handicrafts are practised.

Continuing our drive about the city we were introduced to the Maharajah’s state elephant. He was a fine beast, and occupied a low walled court, all to himself and his keeper. His forehead, trunk, and ears were decorated with an elaborate painted arabesque—a pattern in which vermilion, yellow, and turquoise predominated. His enormous tusks had had their points truncated, and these were tipped and bound with moulded bands of brass. The animal was tethered by one of his hind feet to a post, and stood in the shade of the high palace wall, tranquilly munching stalks of some kind of corn. I reproduce the sketch I made at the time of the elephant and the old man, his keeper.

After tiffin we visited the palace. One could not say much for the taste of some of the decorations. We were shown several large durbar halls with open colonnades, which, however, were closed by hangings, which our guide—a tall, grey-whiskered Rajput—lifted up to show the interiors. The vaulted ceilings were painted with patterns on rather a large scale and in crude reds and blues, rather open and spread out over the white plaster, and somewhat coarse in form. We were then led through the gardens, which were laid out with long tanks with flagged walks each side, lined with gas lamps, but there was no water in the tanks. Farther on we passed through a gateway at the top of a flight of steps to the alligator tank. Here a native attendant having tied a piece of meat to the end of a string, another set up a curious weird call, while yet another ran on to the shore of the lake or tank, and did his best to wake up one or two very torpid alligators which lay in the sunshine by seizing hold of their tails and making them take to the water. Finally, after much persuasion, two alligators were induced to come up for the food. One of these—an old one with no teeth (none of them have tongues)—opened its horrid white mouth and snapped at the piece of meat which the man dangled at the end of the string. Meanwhile big yellow turtles swam up to join in the game, at which they were much quicker than the alligators. Large brown kites, too, seeing what was going on, hovered about expectantly, and dexterously caught fragments thrown to them in mid air. The ubiquitous crow was there also, ready for any unconsidered trifles.

The life of the bazaars at Jaipur is singularly varied and interesting. The streets are unusually wide as native streets go in India. They find room to shake out long strips of newly dyed cotton to dry—a man holding the cloth at each end and waving it wildly about to dry, so that great plashes of yellow or orange and pink are apt to illuminate the streets here and there, as this process is a frequent incident. The brightest red, yellow, green, and blue and pink are also seen in the costumes or rather draperies of the people—the Hindu women in their graceful saris, generally in different shades of red; the Mohammedan women veiling their heads and shoulders in some vivid-coloured muslin—so that one had a general impression of people walking about attired in rainbows. Quaint, two-wheeled vehicles were numerous, often elaborately painted and decorated, called recklas, having awnings over them, and were driven by a superior caste of natives—possibly they might be a sort of equivalent for the gig of respectability which Carlyle writes of. Then there were the heavier ox-carts of the peasant, some of them with a domed cover draped in red within which hidden from view sat the women and children. Another kind of cart was built of bamboo, a curious lattice of the same forming the pole and yoke for a pair of oxen.

Shaving, massage, cleaning teeth, washing, and all the necessary operations, which in the west are generally performed in private, are in Indian native quarters carried on in the open. The natives do not seem to know what privacy is or to feel the need of it. The little naked brown babies everywhere playing freely about are delightful.

Great flocks of pigeons (blue rocks) are always flying about or swooping down to be fed with grain in the open spaces by women; but they are driven away from the heaps of grain for sale in the bazaars.

The women carry everything upon their heads, and seem to do most of the porterage—bearing endless baskets of brown fuel made in rough flat cakes, bundles of wood, straw, sugar-cane, green stuff, bedding, and water jars. In Rajputana the women wear a rather full skirt under the sari, in many pleats rather after the style of an Albanian fustanelle. Masses of bracelets, sometimes completely covering their brown arms, are worn, either of coloured glass, or lacquered metal, or silver, and silver anklets as a rule with little bells attached.

Armed horsemen are frequently seen riding in from or out into the country. Elephants, camels, and flocks of goats vary the street scenes, and residents’ carriages with outriders; camels are also sometimes used to draw vehicles, driven in pairs.

Musicians, with the peculiar long handled Indian guitar, jugglers, conjurers, snake charmers, vendors of stuffs and embroideries, and photograph sellers haunt the open arcades of the hotels and use every device to attract the attention of travellers.

A visit to the deserted city of Amber and its palace is one of the principal excursions outside Jaipur. It is best to start early in the morning, as there is a four to six miles drive by carriage to reach the place whence the ascent to Amber on elephants’ backs is made. The road thither takes the visitor through a section of the city of Jaipur, and passes out on the other side into a road skirted with trees and gardens, from amidst which rise the domes of the pavilions of wealthy Rajputs. The Alligator lake is again passed, and some distance beyond this the foot of the hill is reached, when the traveller is expected to leave his carriage and mount one of the elephants in waiting there to take him up to Amber—another two miles.

It is necessary to be furnished with a formal permission from the Resident to visit Amber. Formerly elephants were placed at the disposal of visitors by the Maharajah, but since tourists became numerous elephants must be hired by them. They are by no means richly caparisoned elephants. The housings leave much to be desired, and the seats are much out of repair, and one is lucky to find the foot-board slung at a usable level and fairly horizontal, and if the protecting rail of the seat does not slip out.

For those who are willing to sacrifice processional dignity and spectacular effect, however, as well as a slow shaking, it is quite possible to walk—for the able bodied, and before the sun is high.

After a steepish hill at first the road descends again, and passing along the border of a small lake, turns round at its head and again ascends to the palace on a considerable height, of which a distant view is obtained, as one approaches it, from the road. It is a striking pile of Mohammedan architecture. Three great gateways are passed on the steep approach up the rocky sides of the hill, and the road is protected by a wall, as at Chitorgarh. Finally the great gateway leading into the courtyard of the palace is reached, and we dismount from the elephant and are surrounded by a number of hangers-on, one of which comes forward to act as guide over the palace, which showed traces of considerable restoration. The great doors of solid brass were exceedingly fine (both here and at the Maharajah’s palace in Jaipur—really the best things there). There were also doors beautifully inlaid with ivory and ebony to some of the zenana rooms, all the doors being interesting for their woods and joinery. There were some delicate pierced marble screens over the gateway of the inner court which had a most lovely effect seen against the sky. The rooms were very elaborately decorated with a sort of veneer of small pieces of looking-glass arranged in arabesque, and united by cloisonnÉ of gesso forming the lines of divisions of the pattern, similar to that we had seen at Udaipur. This decoration, carried all over a vaulted ceiling, in the sunlight reflected from the floor, glittered like beaten silver. On the lower halls were delicate marble panels of floral designs in relief.

The palace as a whole did not strike us as so beautiful as that at Udaipur, although vastly more so than the Maharajah’s at Jaipur.

From the roof and terraces we looked down on gardens and pavilions and on the lake below, then partially dry, and wondered how this vast palace with all its luxurious decoration came to be deserted. A temple at the main entrance, however, is still maintained for worship, which is that of Kali—one of the aspects or secondary characters of Parvati, the wife of Siva—a savage, blood-thirsty goddess only propitiated by animal sacrifices. A goat or a kid is still sacrificed daily here. It was pathetic enough to see the innocent, unconscious intended victim—a poor little kid tied at the corner of the platform of the temple by a little heap of sand. Mr W.S. Caine gives a graphic account of how the head of the victim is instantaneously cut off by the officiating priest, an act he witnessed, but we felt no desire to see this execution.

On our way back I saw a curious instance of the boldness of a kite and the unerring way in which they swoop at their prey. A native was walking down the hill in front of us carrying a piece of bread in his hand, from which he ate, swinging it at his side between whiles. A kite hovering above made a sudden swoop at the bread, which he struck with his beak, scattering the crumbs, though he did not succeed in knocking it quite out of the man’s hand.

Driving in the evening through the bazaars at Jaipur we stopped the carriage to purchase some native cottons and muslins, and were immediately surrounded by a noisy, struggling crowd of rival traders who filled the carriage with their gay coloured stuffs, and literally covered us up with them. Our bearer negotiated the bargains, and in the end we carried off some characteristic textile souvenirs. On the way back to our hotel we stopped to see the Maharajah’s horses, passing through a gateway into a large exercise ground, down the sides of which ran a long open shed, with horses tethered in a line, each horse being secured by long ropes from each hind fetlock fastened to pegs on iron rings fixed in the ground, which sloped down to the open court. In addition to these each horse was tied by a halter, with a rope each side to rings in the manger, and all, of course, had cloths on. There were no partitions between the animals, which I suppose was the reason of their being so carefully secured. There were some very fine animals among them, and the native grooms were very willing to show them off—for a little backsheesh. There were white Arabs, Walers, English hunters, and a tiny Burmese pony.