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18 December 1905 — Udaipur | |
Monday. 18th [December 1905]. Our guide arrived with the Royal carriage in the morning & took us off to see the Royal Palace which is up in the old Fort. We saw the usual narrow rooms with decorations of stucco inlaid with little bits of looking glass, the ladies’ apartments screened off by lattices from the men’s view. We went also to the modern Palace which was decorated in the vilest taste. In one room was a common English print “Cromwell refusing the Crown.” The old Baboo was anxious to know what this meant & on hearing my explanation said “Cromwell one very good man” but he evidently thought he had been a great fool– In another room which had a little recess with a little window looking out on to the lovely lake below, there was a queer little collection of small prints, The Queen, the Prince Consort, Charles I & the P. of Wales– The portraits of the present P. & Pss of Wales were there framed with silver just presented to H. Highness– There were chairs with cut glass mounts of hideous pattern—& chandeliers to match—just come out from England to smarten up the Palace for the visit of the Prince & Pss. We went out of the Fort by a different gate to the one we entered by– We saw a quantity of the Maharajah’s horses being fed by their sayces– The poor beast had their upper jaws tied up and were having milk & meal stuffed into their throats a process of fattening which must be very uncomfortable. Just within the great gateway is a most revolting representation of the Hindu god “Ganesha”—a man sitting cross-legged with a horrid bare stomach & the head of an elephant. This represents strength & is the patron god of the Palace. From the fort we returned to lunch at the hotel & at 4 were fetched again by the Baboo who was to take us on expedition to see old Fort in the neighbourhood on so steep a rock that it required an elephant to carry us up– He had given rendezvous to the elephant man at a place to wh we drove– We got there in about 20 minutes & waited all in vain. It got late & we had to give up the expedition. As we drove back we saw by the foot prints that the elephant had gone by a wrong road his driver having mistaken the way. Our Baboo to console us took us to a tower near by where we again saw the wild pigs fed– There was also an enclosed court into wh we could see which the Baboo said was a place where tigers & pigs were put to fight against each other—a combat in wh the pig generally was victorious. He says there is a saying that a pig would go down to drink between two tigers but a tiger would not go down to drink between two pigs. | |
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