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not know what would become of India with the monkey as a sacred protected animal but for the leopard. In a short time he would swarm over the land. But the leopard and other wild beasts keep him down. Wild peacocks swarm and beautify the hard brown hills with their plumage. The peacock is also a sacred animal, and they were as plentiful on our road to

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Amber as sparrows on the road to Jerome Park. The hills are now and then crowned with castles, the strongholds of old chiefs who took to the cliff and the fastness for protection in the days when might made right in India, the days before the Englishman came and put his strong hand upon all these quarreling races and commanded peace. We pass a lazy pool, in which

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crocodiles are lazily swimming, and on the banks are two or three wild pigs drinking the water. They are unconscious of the murderous eye of the Colonel, who has come to Jeypore to add to the laurels of his laurel-laden house those of a pigsticker. The beating sun pours its rays over you, and you shrink from it under the shade of your carriage, and wonder how these lithe and brown Hindoos, who run at your carriage wheels, can fight the sun. There is no air, no motion; and now, that we are out of Jeypore, and away from the cool and freshened streets, all is parched and arid and dry.

To go to Amber we must ride elephants. For after a few miles the hills come and the roads are broken, and carriages are of no value. We might go on horseback or on camels, but the Maharajah has sent us his elephants, and here they are waiting for us under a grove of mango-trees drawn up on the side of the road as if to salute. The principal elephant wears a scarlet cloth as a special honor to the General. The elephant means authority in India, and when you wish to do your guest the highest honor you mount him on an elephant. The Maharajah also sent sedan chairs for those of us who preferred an easier and swifter conveyance. Mrs. Grant chose the sedan chair, and was switched off at a rapid pace up the ascending road by four Hindoo bearers. The pace at which these chairs is carried is a short, measured quickstep, so that there is no uneasiness to the rider. The rest of us mounted the elephants. Elephant riding is a curious and not an unpleasant experience. The animal is under perfect control, and very often, especially in the case of such a man as the ruler of Jeypore, has been for generations in the same family. The elephant is under the care of a driver, called a mahout. The mahout sits on the neck, or more properly the head, of the elephant, and guides him with a stick or sharp iron prong, with which he strikes the animal on the top of the head. Between the elephant and mahout there are relations of affection. The mahout lives with the elephant, gives him his food, and each animal has its own keeper. The huge creature becomes in time as docile as a kitten, and will obey any order of the mahout. The elephant

seats.

OUR FIRST ELEPHANT RIDE.

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reaches a great age. The one assigned to me had been sixty years in the royal stables. It is not long since there died at Calcutta the elephant which carried Warren Hastings when Governor-General of India-a century ago. There are two methods of riding elephants. One is in a box like the four seats of a carriage, the other on a square, quilted seat, your feet hanging over the sides, something like an Irish jauntingcar. The first plan is good for hunting, but for comfort the second is the better. When we came to our elephant the huge beast, at a signal from the mahout, slowly kneeled. Then a step ladder was put against his side, and we mounted into our Two of the party were assigned to an elephant, and we sat in lounging fashion, back to back. There was room enough on the spacious seat to lie down and take a nap. elephant rises, which he does two legs at a time, deliberately, you must hold on to the rail of your seat. swings along at a slow, wobbling pace. one, like that of a boat in a light sea. distances, it becomes very tiresome. free as in a carriage or a railway car. position or creep about from one side to the other. But the motion brings every part of the body into action, bending and swinging it, and I could well see how a day's long journey would make the body very weary and tired.

When the

Once on his feet he The motion is an easy In time, if you go long Apparently you are as You can sit in any

We left the plain, and ascended the hot, dusty hill to Amber. As we ascended the plain opened before us, and distance deadening the brown arid spaces only showed us the groves and walled gardens, and the greenness of the valley came upon us, came with joyousness and welcome, as a memory of home, for there is no green in India, and you long for a meadow or a rolling field of clover-long with the sense of thirst. There was the valley, and beyond the towers of Jeypore, which seemed to shimmer and tremble in the sun. We passed over ruined paths, crumbling into fragments. We passed small temples, some of them ruined, some with offerings of grain or flowers or fruit, some with priests and people at worship. On the walls of some of the temples we saw the marks of the human

hand as though it had been steeped in blood and pressed against the white wall. We were told that it was the custom when seeking from the gods some benison to note the vow by putting the hand into a liquid and printing it on the wall. This

was to remind the god of the vow and the prayer, and if it came in the shape of rain or food or health or children, the joyous devotee returned to the temple and made other offerings-money and fruits. We kept our way, slowly ascending, winding around the hill on whose crest was the palace of Amber. Mrs. Grant, with her couriers, had gone ahead, and, as our procession of elephants turned up the last slope and passed under the arch, we saw the lady of our expedition high up at a lattice window waving her handkerchief. The courtyard was open and spacious, and entering, our elephants knelt and we came down. We reached the palace while worship was in progress at the temple. Dr. Handley told us that we were in time to take part in the services and to see the priest offer up a kid. Every day in the year in this temple a kid is offered up as a propitiation for the sins of the Maharajah. The temple was little more than a room in the palace-a private chapel. At one end was a platform raised a few inches from the ground and covered On this platform were the images of the gods, of the special god-I think it is Shiva-whom his Highness worships. On this point I will not speak with certainty, for in a mythology

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over.

JOURNEY TO THE PALACE OF AMBER.

THE PALACE OF AMBER.

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embracing several hundred millions of gods one is apt to become bewildered. Whatever the god, the worship was in full progress, and there was the kid ready for sacrifice. We entered the inclosure and stood with our hats off. There were a half dozen worshipers crouching on the ground. One of the attendants held the kid while the priest sat crouching over it, reading from the sacred books, and in a half humming, half whining chant blessing the sacrifice, and as he said each prayer putting some grain or spice or oil on its head. The poor animal licked the crumbs as they fell about it, quite unconscious. of its holy fate. Another attendant took a sword and held it before the priest. He read some prayers over the sword and consecrated it. Then the kid was carried to the corner, where there was a small heap of sand or ashes and a gutter to carry away the blood. The priest continued his prayers, the kid's head was suddenly drawn down and with one blow severed from the body. The virtue of the sacrifice consists in the head falling at the first blow, and so expert do the priests become that at some of the great sacrifices, where buffaloes are offered up in expiation of the princely sins, they will take off the buffalo's head with one stroke of the sword. The kid having performed the office of expiation becomes useful for the priestly dinner.

Of the palace of Amber the most one can say is that it is curious and interesting as the home of an Indian king, in the days when India was ruled by her kings, and a Hastings and a Clive had not come to rend and destroy. The Maharajah has not quite abandoned it. He comes sometimes to the great feasts of the faith, and a few apartments are kept for him. His rooms were ornamented with looking-glass decorations, with carved marble, which the artisan had fashioned into tracery so delicate that it looked like lacework. What strikes What strikes you in this Oriental decoration is its tendency to light, bright, lacelike gossamer work, showing infinite pains and patience in the doing, but without any special value as a real work of art. The general effect of these decorations is agreeable, but all is done for effect. There is no such honest, serious work as you see in the Gothic cathedrals, or even in the Alhambra. One is the expression of

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