Jeypore [Jaipur]. Tuesday 22nd Dearest Father. Here we received our first mail forwarded from Bombay - letters from you and from Mother which we were delighted to have. It does seem so odd to think of you all in a shivering Xmas week! we have the most heavenly climate here. Hot sun and cool air in the shade and cold nights. If only Delhi is like this it will be delicious. I pick up our journeys from where Hugo left us in his letter to Elsa - Ahmedabad [Ahmadabad] on Friday evening. We had a most cheerful dinner in the station with Mr Schuster - dear little man! I really feel quite a considerable affection for him. He is so cheerful and so equable and he travels about in the lap of luxury with a valet who is his best friend and a most charming person - he joined us at dinner and helped to make the tomato salad for which it seems Mr Schuster is celebrated - and a native servant whom he wants to take back to England with him because he thinks he will look so picturesque on the river. I shared his good fare - his salad and his delicious coffee. Then we retired into railway carriages; Hugo and I went peacefully to sleep in ours and when the time came we were hooked onto the train and started off to Abu Road [(Kharari)]. We got there about 7AM on Sat., breakfasted in the station and found our tonga waiting to take us up to Mount Abu, 16 miles of exquisite drive up a steep hill. We went like the wind, changing horses 3 times, up a wild gorge covered with wood and bamboo, the road winding winding [sic] up the hillside. At last we reached the top of the pass and found ourselves in a plateau all broken up by little hills and rocks of marvellous shape - it's tufa - and set with houses and gardens bright with bignonia, bougainvillia and pointsettia. The last mile up to the hotel was done in rickshaws. And the hotel was quite charming too, perched up between rocks and with a lovely view across the broken cup in which Mount Abu lies and the little lake - the Gem its name is. We found the Gascoynes just setting off with permits for the temples and they asked us to come with them, so we drank a cup of tea and took to our rickshaws again. The temples were only a mile or so away, white domes on a rocky hillside, not much to look at outside, but marvels of exquisite carved marble within. They are Jain, which is religion much like Buddhism, it sprang up about the same time and from similar conditions, but instead of a series of Buddhas you have a series of Tirthankars who are represented countless thousands of times in all the temples in much the same attitude as that of the conventional Buddha. These temples dated from the 10th and 11th centuries; each temple consists of a big cloistered court, with the temple itself, the holy of holies, into which we were not allowed to go, in the middle and a wonderful complicated porch consisting of rows of carved columns supporting shallow domes. And every inch was carved with an endless variety of patterns, the most wonderful of all being the domes which were like inverted flowers with a central pendant of incredibly delicate exquisite workmanship. Through all this gleaming white came the sun light slanting between the arcades and the arches and laying golden paths between the columns. A young - priest, I suppose, showed us round, tall and brown and thin he was, with the yellow ochre cast mark on his forehead, and he wore a loin cloth reaching to the knees of brilliant purple muslin and over his shoulder a long scarf of flaming orange. Presently some people came in with offerings and two or three of the temple people proceeded to attract the attention of the god by beating a very large drum and ringing some Bells - the sleepiest god must have been roused by them. Can you begin to see the group of them in their bright clothes standing under the carved arches in sunlight filtered through marble tracery. The quality of the light coming through fretted screens of marble - we noticed it at Ahmedabad - it is so wonderful that your eye seems to touch it and take a palpable joy in it. After lunch the Gascoynes left, putting us into the hands of a young man called Savile who was up there on sick leave. He is in the Artillery and was at Clifton with Oliver. He took us a most delightful walk all round the lake and out onto a point on the steep hillside from whence we looked right away across the hot plain 3000 ft Bellow. It is set with steep volcanic hills, like Abu, rising suddenly out of it like islands out of a sea and the edge of it is the great Indian desert. So we saw the sunset and walked back, through hedges of white and red roses and jasmine, to tea at the club which is an enchanting place built by various Rajas and presented by them to the English. It has one of the best racquet courts I have ever seen - "erected by His Highness the Maharajah of Jeypore at the cost of" - I forget how many 1000 rupees (vide the tablet over the door). Here we met and were introduced to a little colony of English people with whom we played Badminton after tea. It was too odd finding oneself in the middle of a hill station and doing all the funny childish things they do out here. Next morning, which was Sunday, I left H. sleeping and went out soon after sunrise to the top of the highest hill to see the view, which was most beautiful. I got up in 40 minutes and was too proud to come down the same way, with the result that I presently found myself in thickets of cactus jasmine and prickles through which I struggled for an hour and a half and reached the road looking like a porcupine with my clothes quite full of thorns and sharp grass seeds. Muhammad and another man spent nearly an hour taking them out, but that gown remained a kind of Iron Maiden for the rest of the day and I find some prickles in it still. So I shall not walk through any more jungles. We had rather a business getting down to the station, for there were no tongas, so H. and I had to go down in rickshaws - which I must say was very nice - sending Muhammad and the luggage in an ekka. Now an ekka is a little cushioned platform about a yard square on 2 big wheels, with a four post canopy above it like a bed; and sometimes it is a little larger and drawn by bullocks, and if there are ladies in it they let down curtains all round the canopy, hanging from a pointed top like a tent - it's illustrated in Kim: the bullock cart the old lady drives in on the Grand Trunk Road. And too pretty it is. We got a carriage to ourselves and left Abu Road at 4; dined in the train and after a very peaceful night arrived here at 5 AM, bitterly cold and quite dark. We left Muhammad to grapple with the luggage, came on to the hotel, had tea and went to bed till 8 or later. After breakfast we drove off to the other hotel to enquire for Susan and Sibyl, found them just going out and offered them seats in our carriage for the town is a long way off. Now Jeypore is a modern town, 100 years old or so, and it has wide streets full of marketers, and all the houses are coated with pale pink stucco with white patterns on it, and they use every kind of animal as beasts of burden, horses, bullocks, buffaloes, camels and elephants and they tie up their hunting leopards outside their doors where they sit upright like Noah's Ark animals, and their humpy cows go walking about the streets by themselves, just as if they were dogs. It's all vastly entertaining, but just a trifle shoddy as regards architecture, so we spent most of our morning in the streets and shopping - and it is a fascinating place to shop! We met Sir Alfred Haslam, Hugo's friend, at our jeweller's and asked him for his advice, so he said "Oh yes, these stones are very good; I've just bought some necklaces myself!" On the strength of which we bought 3 necklaces - 2 for my sisters and a lot of charming pots and boxes of Jeypore enamel and a carpet! These last are being sent home, but please don't open anything but the carpet - which is my present to Hugo - because most of the other things are presents to our family and we want to give them ourselves. At lunch we found the Russells, to our joy, and the Samuels who have at length discovered who we are and came up and introduced themselves to us - he's the brother of the member for Cleveland - rather common and Youpin plus qu'il n est permis de l'à tre. In the afternoon we saw saw [sic] the Maharaja's palace, an absurd place, courts and courts of pink and yellow stucco, great halls full of the worst European furniture and immense gardens with most elaborate water cascades and fountains, all dry "except when the Viceroy comes." A tank at the end if full of green slime and allegators [sic], and these last were fed for our benefit on the innards of something for which they fought with the kites. The kites are too nice. They have a shrill scream which is the most typical of Indian sounds - that and the creak of the wooden rollers as the bullocks draw up water from the wells. We saw enormous stables full of horses from all parts of the world, from Ladak to Arabia; I wish we had had longer to look at them, and man eating tigers in cages, horribly cross. They jumped at the bars and growled and raged. Then we went to tea with our jeweller - Sir Alfred Haslam was the other member of the party, a self satisfied old bore he is, but Hugo loves him because he says he's so incredibly boring. We had at least 20 courses of sweets, then curry, and then roasted grains and the jeweller apologized saying that he ought to have offered us 100 dishes or more. We were glad he fell short. H. is in a tent in the hotel garden; he loves it. This morning we set off at 8 and drove to Amber (pronounced Amäre) which is the old capital. We drove 6 miles or so along a delightful road between palaces and tombs and trees full of monkeys and squirrels and peacocks and doves and parrots. Then we got to the entrance of the hills where there were elephants and bullock waggons [sic] waiting for us. So we curled up under the canopy of a bullock wagon and creaked up the gorge till we got to a place where it widened into a green lake and on the top of the hill on the other side was a long line of palace and fort all deserted. Into this we walked, between lines of fortification till we got to a great doorway through which we passed into the first big court of the palace. Up a flight of steps at one end we were taken into a little dark court where there is the famous shrine of Kali, the cruel and terrible goddess whom the Aryans are supposed to have borrowed from the aborigines and here every morning a goat is sacrificed where a man used to be offered up in the old times. There was one in a blue mantle sitting before the shrine and chanting out of a Sanscrit book. I asked him what he was reading and he said it was the Puranas, some of the latest Vedic books. We went on through court after court, rising one above the other till at the top of the palace we came to the ladies' rooms, most enchanting white marble rooms, with pierced marble windows through which you looked down onto the lake with its garden in the middle of it, and onto the deserted town full of ruined temples and away through a chink in the hills over the plain. These rooms were covered with arching ceilings decorated with glass and stucco which in the shadow made a delicate kind of grey pattern and at the bottom of the arch, where the light caught it, glistened and shone silver. We went down long sloping passages into marble bath rooms and up to more airy high perched chambers, domed and pinacled [sic], standing on terraces on the edge of a garden court - it was a fairy palace, one of the incredible things one sees in India. We came out another way and walked through the town, a town of temples and palaces and mosques falling into ruin, the home of grey monkeys. So we drove home and on our way stopped to visit the Cenotaphs of the Maharajas in a garden outside the city walls, built over the places where dead kings were burnt, marble columns and marble domes, the nicest of all with a Byzantine decoration of peacocks. As we passed through the town we stopped at the Maharanja's College, sent up our card and were shown round by the Principal, an aimiable [sic] Bengali Brahman. He took us round the classes where Hindu boys of all ages were learning their lessons in deep galleries open on one side and I had a long conversation in Persian with the professors of Persian and Sanscrit and exchanged civilities with the professors of Arabic - not with great success as they talked nothing but the Arabic of the Koran. Then we heard little boys recite in English - at least we found it was English and, after careful listening, identified "Longliveourgraciousqueensendhervictorioushappyandglorious" all said at the top of a high squeaky voice. The favorite poem - we heard it at least 6 times - began "Fatherofall." It was a hymn I think. H. looked over an examination paper one little boy was answering and read "The Lakes of Scotland are Adeego and Ladogo." We are at a loss to interpret this. The Brahman told us that they have no trouble about castes except with the Rajput boys, relations of the Maharja, who have to have a class all to themselves. We went in and saw them, blackeyed little boys with pearls and rubies in their ears. He says their best scholars are the high caste Hindus. This afternoon I drove about the streets and climbed to the top of the museum to get a general view of the town. At the eastern end the desert sand is blowing in through an opening of the hills and choking all the wells and springs so that that quarter of the town has been deserted. I also went to the Purblic Library where the Librarian showed me round. But they had no MSS of interest. I Bellieve the Maharaja has some. We hear that Oliver is coming to the Durbar, so we are not going to Lucknow yet - it's an awful journey. We leave tomorrow at 5 AM for Agra where we hope to stay till Sunday if we can get lodgings. The chief hotel if full, but Muhammad promises that he will lodge us somewhere. The Russells leave by the same train for Delhi. I wish we had been at the last Thursday party; it sounds most brilliant. I told you Sir Ian was a fascinating person. You seem to have been well into pocket over the election expenses. Ever your very affectionate daughter Gertrude

Agra. Xmas Day. [25 December 1902] Many many Xmas greetings! We have the most lovely sunny morning and we are living in tents in the garden of an excellent hotel. We got up yesterday at 3.30 to catch a 5 AM train. It was an hour and a half late! Fortunately the Russellls were also in the same boat - waiting room, I mean, so we beguiled the time by playing Bridge. We had a carriage to ourselves and got here at 4, having caught up an hour on the way. At Hugo's instigation we tried the hotel that had told us it was full and found they had put up tents in the garden and could lodge us. Then we drove off to the Taj. It's rather ..... What no one tells one is the lovely way it stands on the Jumna [Yamuna]. We sat in a pavilion of red sandstone inlaid with white marble overlooking the great sweep of the sacred river and watched the after sunset glow deepen on the Taj. As the dusk fell it shone with a warm light as though it were of alabaster illuminated from within. And all the garden round it smelt sweet of flowers and with the fresh smell of its many fountains, most grateful in this dusty land.
After all I must take a new sheet! This morning H. went to church and I strolled down into the town and saw the fort. It is full of palaces, built by Akbar and his successors - far far the most lovely thing we have yet seen in India. I am beginning to think that the Moguls were the greatest dynasty of builders that ever reigned. We were taken over it all in detail this afternoon by a delightful Sergeant who lives in the Fort and to whom Mr Cavendish Bentinck had sent us. (Mr C.B. is a friendly old party who was on the China.) I can't begin to describe it to you. One palace is of red sandstone all carved by Hindu workmen, inlaid with marbles and tiles - this is the oldest. The next is all of white marble with inlay of precious marbles and panels of exquisite Persian low relief, court after cloistered court, some with gardens, some with fountains, some with great columned halls of audience, white marble pavilions domed and columned standing high up on the fortress wall overlooking the Jumna and from everywhere the view of the Taj, framed in white marble, framed in red sandstone, seen from terraces and between domes, and the great curve of the river and the sunny dusty landscape of the Plains. From the private apartments of emperors we went down steep and dark stairs into endless passages running through the heart of the fort. One gloomy octagonal room contained a great bath where the prisoners made their last purifications and in the bowels of the earth we reached a pitch dark hole with a huge beam across it and a blackness Bellow - blackness that led straight down to the Jumna. By this path the Moguls sent their enemies to another incarnation. Most of the passages have been blocked up, because people wandered in and lost themselves and never returned, but tradition says that there are underground corridors to the Taj, 2 miles away and to Sikandra 6 and to Fattehpor Sikri [Fatehpur Sikri] 16. Outside the palace in the fort enclosure stands the Pearl Mosque, a vision of white marble quite indescribably beautiful. From far away its domes and the palace pavilions are like a mass of the most exquisite white and gold bubbles hanging above the {great} grim sandstone walls. We met a young man called MacDougall who is nephew of Lady MacDougall and made friends with him over photography. He's a cheerful person. The Samuels are here and will be in our camp. He has most obligingly lent us money for the banks are closed and we could get none. He also got me my permission to photograph in the Fort - from the C.O. - so I shall have to revise my opinion of him. Tomorrow we spend the day at Fattehpor Sikri, Akbar's capital which he built and lived in for a few years and then abandoned. We are so comfy in our big tents, but it's cold at night and I am thankful for my fur coat, tell Mother, and shall have reason to rejoice in it at Delhi. The difference of temperature after sunset is quite extraordinary, but here even in the afternoon you can go about without a helmet, though you want it in the middle of the day. I give it up always with reluctance; it's the most sensible of hats.

Now this is really goodbye for the mail leaves early tomorrow.