seats.

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. When the 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.

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

Mrs.

way, slowly ascending, winding around the hill on whose crest was the palace of Amber. 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

over.

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 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

a facile, sprightly race, fond of the sunshine, delighting to repeat the caprice of nature in the curious and quaint; the other has a deep, earnest purpose. This is an imagination which sees its gods in every form-in stones and trees and beasts and creeping things, in the stars above, in the snake wriggling through the hedges-the other sees only one God, even the Lord God Jehovah, who made the heavens and the earth, and will come to judge the world at the last day. As you wander through the courtyards and chambers of Amber the fancy is amused by the character of all that surrounds you. There is no luxury. All these kings wanted was air and sunshine. They slept on the floor. The chambers of their wives were little more than cells built in stone. Here are the walls that

There are no windows

surrounded their section of the palace. looking into the outer world, only a thick stone wall pierced with holes slanting upward, so that if a curious spouse looked out she would see nothing lower than the stars. Amber is an immense palace, and could quite accommodate a rajah with a court of a thousand attendants.

There were some beautiful views from the terrace, and we sat in the shade between the columns and looked into the valley beyond, over which the sun was streaming in midday splendor. We should have liked to remain, but our elephants had been down to the water to lap themselves about and were now returning refreshed to bear us back to Jeypore. We had only given ourselves a day for the town, and we had to return the call of the Prince, which is a serious task in Eastern etiquette. Mr. Borie was quite beaten down and used up by the sun and the wobbling, wearisome elephant ride; but we succeeded in persuading him to make the descent in a chair, as Mrs. Grant had done. There was something which did violence to Mr. Borie's republican spirit in the idea of being carried about in a chair when there were elephants to ride, and it was only upon pressure that we managed to mount him in his chair. While Mr. Borie and Mrs. Grant were off swinging and lolling down the hill, the rest of us took a short cut among the ruins, leaping from stone to stone, watching the ground care

fully as we went, to see that we disturbed no coiled and sleeping cobra, until we came upon our huge and tawny brutes and were wobbled back to our carriages and in our carriages to

town.

We saw the sights of Jeypore on our return.

There was a

industrial customs and the resources of the country. He would go ten miles to see a new-fashioned plow or to avoid seeing a soldier or a gun. The school is one of the Prince's favorite schemes, and the scholars showed aptness in their work. The special work in which Jeypore excels is enameled jewelry, and some of the specimens shown us were exceedingly beautiful and dear. We went to the Mint, and saw the workmen beat the coin and stamp it. We went to the collection of tigers,