Sunday Jan 18th. In the train from Alwar to Delhi. Dearest Mother. Here this letter shall be begun for we are in a beautiful long carriage that scarcely shakes at all. We left Udaipur - with many regrets - on Thursday morning and got to Chitor [Chittaurgarh] at 2 in the afternoon. There we lodged in a Dak Bungalow near the station which we had quite to ourselves. These D.B.s are built by Govt. for travellers. The first comer gets them, pays a rupee a night for his lodging and very moderate prices for his meals which are cooked by the Chowkidar in charge, who also, with his family, waits on you. They consist generally of 2 sets of rooms, bedroom, dressing room and bath room, and a living room between, so that for a party of 2 they are ideal, besides being cheap. Muni, whom we {picked} had sent on to the Hospital at Ajmer to get himself cured of the fever, was not with us, but my thrice blessed Hindustani, though it doesn't reach to any flowers of speech, carries us through our travels admirably and here we were able to stop where no one has a word of English, without any inconvenience. The first thing we did was to send for Him, then we lunched and by the time we had finished He was there - immensely there! so we got onto his back by means of a ladder, with immense skill avoided falling off when he got up - an elephant is far the most difficult animal to sit that I have ever been on - and padded off to the Fort of Chitor, which was quite 4 miles off. You feel at first rather as if you were in a light boat lying at anchor in seas a little choppy after a capful of wind - I think you might possibly be seasick! - but the sensation soon wears off and you learn to dispose yourself with ease and grace upon the howdah, and above all not to seize hold of the side bars when the elephant sits down, for they are only hooked and jerk out, landing you, probably (as they nearly landed me) in the dust a good many feet Bellow. We soon discovered that the great tip for good elephantship is to grasp the front bar the moment you get on, for he gets up from {behind} in front and very quickly too for he doesn't like kneeling at all) and the problem is how not to fall over his tail. Chitor is the old capital of the Mewar State, Udaipur was only built after Chitor had been laid waste for the last time by Akbar in the 16th century. It goes back to the dimmest past, for it was held by Mori Rajputs before the parent people, the Sesodias, came in in the 8th cent. The Sesodias are, perhaps, the greatest great gentlemen in Rajputana [Rajasthan] which is a land of great gentlemen. The Sesodia family never gave a daughter to the Moguls, not even to Akbar who broke down the barriers with all the other Rajput families. The emperor of India was no match for a princess of Chitor. The annals of Chitor surpass the wildest heroic annals of European chivalry. Listen to this tale, which is one out of thousands scattered up and down its history: 2 great houses, younger branches of the reigning house, disputed with one another as to which had the right to lead the van of Rana's army on a raid against the Moguls. The Rana decided that whichever should first enter into the fort which was to be attacked should in future lead the van. So they charged with unheard of valour and one of the two, led by its prince on his elephant, attacked the gate. But the great gate was spiked and the elephant refused to ram it down. Thereupon the prince jumped off, cast himself onto the spikes and ordered the Mahout to ram the gate, using his body as a cushion. And the elephant rammed the gate through the prince's body and his men rushed in. But when they entered they found that the others were before them, for the Suktawuts has assailed the walls with scaling ladders, their prince first, and he had fallen with his foot on the ladder. Therefore his son unrolled his turban and slung his father's body in it across his back and running up the ladder cast the dead body over the walls crying "The Suktawuts have the van!" and fell himself before his men could follow him. Three times, to 3 Muhammadan invaders, Chitor fell, after sieges before which Troy pales. The women put on armour and died fighting, and at last when all hope was gone, in the long vaulted passages under the palace they lighted the Johur fires, the queens and all the women that were left alive marched down in their jewels and their bravery, the door was sealed upon them and they were left to burn and to suffocate. Then the men dressed in the saffron robe of death, eat the pan leaf together which is the sign of departure, the gates were thrown open and the whole population rushed down the mountain side and fell in battle. Three times this happened; in the first sack by Ala ud Din in 1303, they say 13,000 women suffered the Johur, led by Padmani the beautiful queen for whose sake the Emperor of Delhi, having once seen her face in a mirror, attacked the town. But it was Akbar who laid the town in ruins and the greatest of the heroic tales - they are sung still by the people - are of his siege and from his time the most binding oath of a Sesodia is "By the sin of the sack of Chitor." Fortunately I had with me a fat history of Rajputana in 2 big volumes, and we dashed breathlessly through the Annals of Mewar while we were here - Sir F.P. lent it me, it is written by one Tod who was Resident here just after the Maratha wars, a work of much merit. The fort is built upon one of the curious hills of trap that rise straight out of the dead flat plain - all Rajputana is of this pattern. It is about 600 ft high at the highest, and a mile and a half long and about ½ a mile wide at the widest - there was room for a good big city on it. At its foot lies the little modern town, a charmingly picturesque and thoroughly Indian town of bazaars and temples with a group of Shrines, Shiwa, Vishnu and the elephant headed Ganesh (he is the God of Getting On!) under every mango tree. There are besides more peacocks than I ever saw in one place; at sunrise and at dusk the air is full of their screaming. The road winds and winds up from the new town to the old, fortified and guarded by 7 gateways. Twice we stopped, once before an upright stone painted with Shiwa's scarlet outside the first gate, once before 2 marble pavilions (chattris they are called "umbrellas" they always mark the cenotaph of a great man) half way up the hill and the Mahout said "Here Bagh fell, here Patta of Kailwa was killed." These were heroes of the sieges of Chitor. Bagh - I must tell you his tale - was crowned king for a day that he might sacrifice himself in battle to the Great Goddess of Chitor, Insani, Shiwa's wife in his character of Iswara, Creator. She had appeared to the Rana of the day and demanded king's blood, and therefore Bagh was Rana for a day, Rana of the saffron robe, and at night the goddess had her sacrifice. It was near 5 by the time we got to the top - an elephant doesn't go as fast as he is big, if I can make you understand! - so all that we did was to climb to the top of a great Tower of Victory, a great and splendid tower, carved within and without and built by Khumba Rana in the heyday of Chitor, and watch the sun set from it over the wide plains. It was very wonderful with all that story in our ears and written large on the ruined temples and palaces round us on the hill top. It was quite dark as we passed through the bit of jungle between the village and the D.B. I said to the Mahout "Can the elephant people see in the dark?" He replied "Presence! he sees!" But he doesn't really, I think, for we watched him afterwards and he keeps his trunk trailing on the ground and feels every inch of the way. It's a little disconcerting to find that an Indian, when he wishes to ascribe ideal movement to a woman, calls her "elephant gaited." "An eye like a gazelle, a waist like a lion and a gait like an elephant." It's the most delightful thing to pass through an Indian town in the dusk. The last shops to shut (and the first to open) are the sweetmeat sellers; they keep their flare of oil lamps - earthenware lamp, bien entendu - long after all the others are dark. The humpy cows, which wander about the streets like dogs with us, are turning home up side alleys, and on every door step sits huddled[?] a woman in a long red cotton cloth, drawn over her head, and chats with the neighbouring doorstep. Just before sunset and just before sunrise, every Hindu town clangs with temple Bellls - a shrill of Bellls and a deep clang of gongs it catches you at the heart as no other combination of sounds does, it is so wildly barbaric - you half picture the sacrificing priest with drawn knife in the dim sanctuary of Kali, and it is no very wild stretch of the imagination either, for he sacrifices the goat to this day in some places and the goat dies now where the man died centuries ago. We had a most delicious peaceful evening in our bungalow and got up early next morning for our elephant came to fetch us again at 7.30 and we rode up and explored the whole of Chitor. It was awfully interesting, for there were palaces long before Muhammadan invaders influenced Hindu architecture, and old old temples and a lovely Jain tower of the 9th century, of which, alas, 2 stories [sic] fell last year so that it had to be all wrapped up in scaffolding. We saw in one of the oldest temples an almost naked man washing, having just performed the proper prayers to the god. He still had his mouth bound up with the prescribed cloth. While I was photographing he put on the fleshcoloured cotton mantle of the holy man and dipping his finger in some white ash, marked his forehead with the two parallel lines of the Shiwa caste mark. Near the Jain tower is the most famous of all the gates, the Gate of the Sun; through it most of the last sallies took place. The road from it leads down, through many gates to a half deserted village in the plain. As we stood we could see behind us the palace under which are the passages where the queens went down to the fire and before us the gate through which the saffron robed chieftains thundered down to the sword - some peasant women in red saris were toiling up the path, each carrying upon her head a double load of copper milk jars and chattering together as they passed through the {open} gateway into the peaceful citadel. It was a very vivid bit of Indian history, past and present. We saw the entrance of the narrow stair which leads down into the Johur passages; it is still blocked with the stones that were laid upon it in Akbar's time, on the last day of Chitor. They have never been removed. As we returned through the town I went into the - townhall? where I found our friend the Naib Hakim who had arranged about our elephant for us and thanked him as well as I could. I must tell you that in Urdu there is no word either for please or thank you! except grovelling phrases to be used by an inferior to a superior. So that the exact nuance of gratitude to a Naib Hakim is a little difficult to render. We lunched in our DB and caught our train at 2, having as usual a carriage to ourselves. At Ajmer we had 10 minutes to dine in - fortunately Muni turned up and looked after the luggage for we had to change. We again had a carriage to ourselves and a most excellent night, breakfasted at 7 - a meal of 4 courses - and got to Alwar at 9. We had heard from Mr Chirol that he would be there, staying at the Residency, and we found him on the platform, with the Resident, Col. Fagan, who immediately invited us to the Residency also. He was seeing off an Englishman who had been for 2 years the Maharaja's tutor, and the Maharaja was there too. We were introduced to him and talked to him for a little, a pleasant boy of 20, a wonderful polo player. English is his native tongue. He speaks Hindi to his wife, who is a Sesodia of his own age, but always English to his ministers. We all drove off to the Residency, a charming house, in a great big beautiful garden, and Mrs Fagan received us most kindly - and quite as a matter of course - and we were presently having hot baths quite as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Indian hospitality is boundless - Mr Cobb, the Resident at Jeypore [Jaipur], told me he put up, on an avarage [sic], 200 people a year whom he had never seen till they arrived. When we had washed and changed we drove out with Mr Chirol to see the town palace - the Maharaja was not living in it, but we left cards on him on our way and a servant ran after us and told us that he sent us his salaams. It's quite modern, but it stands very prettily on a tank set round with marble pavilions and enclosed by high steep hills. Alwar has a famous library; most of his fine things were still in Delhi, but we were shown some very interesting, and most beautiful, contemporary portraits of Akbar and Shah Jehan with their courts, Persian work, I expect, just like illuminated pictures in books. As Mr Chirol said they were very much the same as Italian pre-Raphaelite things in an eastern dress, indeed they might almost have been Gentile Belllini. Alwar is also famous for its stud. We went on to see where they keep the breeding stock, most satisfactory and delightful, great open courts with the stalls in sheds all round and the mares and their foals running about just as they pleased. In the next court were the stallions - there were some beauties! They have Arabs of the most famous stocks, a few Irish horses and some delightful country breds, Kathiawars and Marwaris. These two last, which are the best of the Indian horses, are both desert bred, Indian desert, like Arabs, and very like Arabs to look at. These were all, the mares at least, as gentle as possible, looking as if they had been properly handled all their lives; it was charming to see them. The Gascoynes came to lunch, they were staying at the Dak B. - nice people, I was glad to see them again. They are coming to see us in London. Mrs G. told me that Sibyl had recovered but had determined to go straight home and left this week. About 4 Domnul, H. [Hugo] and I drove to the bottom of the hills where we found 2 elephants waiting to take us up to a fort about 1200 ft above the town. It was an enchanting expedition. We got up about 5 and watched the sunset over a wonderful labyrinth of bare hills, the home of tigers and panthers. We walked down in the dusk - the elephant people are so very slow coming down hill. We nearly had an awful adventure going up. We had to pass through rather a low gateway leading into the Fort and I heard the men debating whether it was high enough for us on the howdahs - finally, after some consideration, they made the elephants kneel down and we walked through. The howdahs almost touched the arch! We should certainly have been squashed to death. This morning we got up early and at 7.30 drove off with Col. Fagan to see the foals and yearlings fed. They keep them in great open places - there is no lack of space in Rajputana - near an old tomb; no one knows anything about the person whose tomb it is except that his name is Fatb[?] Jung. There were 2 or 300 foals feeding out of troughs, all as tame as possible, coming up to be petted. Then we saw the young mules which are bred for the transport in Alwar's Imperial Service troops - his cavalry are said to be better mounted than any Raja's - and finally, the prettiest sight of all, which was the feeding of the yearlings. They are scattered over about a mile of open country, and a few trees growing in it for shade. The food was all put ready for them in long troughs and near there were water troughs. We climbed up onto a sort of platform and a man blew a trumpet call. We waited for a minute or two - no sign. The man blew again. Then Col. Fagan said "They're coming, I see the dust" and behind some trees, quite far away, we saw the dust rising. In a minute they came galloping in, 50 or 60 of them, jumping over bushes and ditches and leaving a great yellow cloud behind them. It was the most charming thing in the world. We drove back to breakfast, after which we had to catch our train. Mr Chirol saw us off, which was nice, for the train was ½ an hour late. You need never be bored in an Indian station; it's crowded with such enchanting people. We found a group of begging priests, sturdy jolly people with wooden begging bowls and thick staffs dressed in flesh coloured cotton thrown over their heads and bodies, their legs bare - I photographed them. I rather hope we may croquet Domnul again at Calcutta before we leave. He got out of his trial with an apology, but he had to go to Saharanpur and the English Magistrate told him that he knew the case was perfectly absurd, but that if he hadn't issued the writ and the Babu had appealed to Lord Curzon, he, the magistrate would never have heard the last of it.

Lahore Monday 19th. [19 January 1903] We got to Delhi at 3 and had just time to pick up our luggage and make all our arrangements comfortably. It was very odd to see Delhi again - it looks like a dissipated rake after a night of merrymaking. Bits of triumphal arches, piles of furniture, gold paper pavilions, rolled up tents laying about all over, the camps half dismantled and auctions going on at every street corner. They say the things have sold very well - for more than they were worth indeed. The Rajas have bought largely. The station was full of carriages and horses waiting to be entrained. We had a very comfortable - but a cold - night, and got here at 7 AM. We found only one room reserved for us, but fortunately the Russells are here and Hugo has doubled up with Gilbert. After we had washed and dressed, we went to the Museum - Lockwood Kipling's Museum - knocked up a native sub director to whom he had recommended me and got him to show and explain to us the wonderful Buddhist sculpture. It all dates from about the 1st century before to the 1st century after Christ - all the stories of Buddha and the legends of the former births carved in high relief of beautiful workmanship. Some of them you would swear were Greek of the 5th century BC and they are Greek, for we are now in Bactria and these things were cut under a far away Greek influence lingering on from Alexander. Nothing that I have seen in India is the least like them - you have grouping here and natural action and bold fine outlines extraordinarily different from the contorted and yet rigid figures of Hindu sculpture. One only regrets that Bactria lasted such a little time and covered such a small part of India. This is the Museum over which the Curator showed the Lama, the Wonder House; I photographed the gun Zamzama outside on which Kim sat, you remember. We found Willie Peel and Lord Killalin [Killanin] when we got in and had rather an amusing lunch with them. They had just come from Peshawar and gave us good advice as to things to do there. This is an entirely different world. From Alwar yesterday moving to Lahore today might almost be from Paris to Constantinople [Istanbul]. We left a Hindu city and find a Mahommadan; we left marble temples and find tiled mosques and we have exchanged a slender naked Hindu population for the stalwart men of the north, Sikhs and Pathans, long coated, with beards dyed with henna and heads wrapped in colossal turbans of many folds, speaking a tongue bristling with Persian words. It is much more like the East I know - much more like Persia or Syria than like Rajputana [Rajasthan]. The native town is a wonderful place, packed close within high walls, one mass of bazaars where they sell things I know and foods I have eaten often enough in Damascus [Dimashq (Esh Sham, Damas)] or Smyrna [Izmir]. There is a big Fort (we went to see it this afternoon) built by Akbar and Shah Jehan, with some lovely little courts and pavilions in the palace, but all woefully disfigured by English white wash and neglect. An armoury full of murderous Sikh weapons - we are in the middle of the Sikh country and there are tombs of Sikh Gurus where people read Granth Sahib aloud unceasingly - and a fine, but much neglected mosque of Aurungzeb's. It was built with the money he got from a murdered brother's estates, which, they say, accounts for the fact that it has not been much sought after by the pious, though I should have thought that one murder more or less would scarcely have been observed by people accustomed to Aurungzeb's ways. There is a beautiful tomb in one of the gardens which has a tragic history to it. It is the cenotaph of a fair lady of Akbar's court with whom his son, Jehangir, fell madly in love; Akbar discovered the intrigue and had her strangled, but after his father's death, Jehangir put up this tomb to her memory. A passionate inscription in Persian runs round the cenotaph under the low relief of wild rose boughs which twine round the 99 names of God: If for one moment I may see thy face, ah, then the Resurrection is life and for the Judgement I have no fears - the lover, Selim Akbar (that was Jehangir's name). We got the mail today and are delighted to hear that you flourish and that Moll is better. I hope you will go abroad somewhere. You are quite right to read the Daily Mail, for it is the only paper besides the Times that has a special correspondent - Mr Landon to wit. The Russells told us a horrible tale: they went to Umballa [Ambala] from Delhi and there they could get no carriages because all the carriages, which had just come back from Delhi, were at once put in quarantine - for plague! And they say the plague was raging in the native town, unknown to anyone but Lord C [Curzon]. It's very cold here - thick gowns even in the middle of the day, but a delicious sun. Bitter at night; I have a fire and am very glad of it. And now to bed. Hugo's undrawn Sword will arrive addressed to Father at 95 and there will be some Customs Duty to pay. He tried to get back what he paid, but couldn't.