For a thousand years the innumerable stone gods which encircle the tower
in endless profusion have watched with sightless eyes over the city. Grey
already with age were they when they saw, raised in pristine beauty, the
shattered domes and broken columns which now lie prone in the brushwood
far beneath their feet. What ghastly scenes those stony faces have
surveyed, when, swept by the scathing steel, the city has run red with
blood, and her defenders have fallen to the last man. One crowning horror,
though, they have been always spared, for no maid or matron of Chitor ever
deigned to bow her neck beneath the yoke of the Mogul, but rather dared to
face a fiery death in the bowels of the great cavern beneath the city than
yield her honour to the conqueror.
The Tower of Fame is being repaired by the present Rana, under the
superintendence of our host and a party of native workmen. Masons and most
skilful carvers in stone were busily engaged in the restoration of parts
that had fallen into dangerous decay--an extremely flimsy-looking
scaffolding, made apparently of light bamboos, tied together in wisps, and
forming a fragile-looking ramp, wound spirally up the outside of the tower.
My host seemed to consider it a perfectly safe means of ascent, and as the
workmen did not appear to slip off in any appreciable numbers I felt
constrained to go up. I should like to have done it on all fours! The
climb was well worth undertaking, as it enabled one to inspect the
astonishing and finely-carved figures which encrust the whole exterior of
the column.
Pages:
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299