Therefore, it was not until I had
been soothed with an excellent lunch, and the contents of a very long
tumbler, that I felt strong enough to take an intelligent interest in the
contents of the Maharana's curiosity-shop!
_Monday, October_ 30.--The more we see of Udaipur the more we are charmed
with it. The whole place is so absolutely unspoilt by modernism, is so
purely Eastern--and ancient Eastern at that--that we feel as though we
were in a little world far apart from the great one where steam and
electricity shatter the nerves, and drive their victims through life at
high pressure.
Ringed in by a rampart of arid hills, beyond which the scrub-covered
desert stretches for miles, the peaceful city of Udaipur lies secluded in
an oasis, whose centre is a turquoise lake. High in his palace the
Maharana rules in feudal state, and, like Aytoun's Scottish Cavalier,
"A thousand vassals dwelt around--all of his kindred they,
And not a man of all that clan has ever ceased to pray
For the royal race he loves so well."
For to his subjects the Maharana is little less than a divinity, for is he
not a direct descendant of the Sun? Likewise is he not the chief of the
only royal house of Rajputana, who disdained to purchase Mogul friendship
at the price of giving a daughter in marriage to the Mohammedan?
There are greater personages among the ruling Princes of India, according
to British ruling--Hyderabad, for instance.
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