tances, it becomes very tiresome. Apparently, you are as free as in a carriage or a railway-car. You can sit in any 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. 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 Jeypoor, 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 court-yard over. 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. Hendley 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 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 worshippers 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 buffalo 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 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 formin 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 court-yards 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 surrounded their section of the palace. There are no windows 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 like to have remained, but our elephants had been down to the water to lap themselves about, and were now returning, refreshed, to bear us back to Jeypoor. 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 wabbling, wearisome elephant ride, but we succeeded in persuading him to make the descent in a chair as Mrs. Grant had done. 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 carefully as we went, to see that we disturbed no coiled and sleeping cobra, until we came upon our huge and tawny brutes, and were wabbled back to our carriages and in our carriages to town. CHAPTER XXXI. THE JUNGLES OF JEYPOOR THE COLONEL TRIES HIS - THE VISIT TO BHURTPOOR SKILL AT BOAR HUNTING AGRA SHOW - OFF FOR DELHI. The jungles of Jeypoor are famous for their abundance of wild beasts. Colonel Grant, who had had some experience in hunting on our great Western plains, became anxious to try his skill here, and it was not long before an opportunity presented itself. The hunt and its attendant circumstances are thus described:- An officer of the Maharajah's household, the principal hunter, and famous among the hunters in India, waited upon us at the British residency, and said that at six next morning he would be ready to accompany any of us to the jungle who cared to go, and would direct the hunt. The Doctor was disposed to volunteer, and if the General himself had not been under engagements which he could not put aside, I think he would have ventured out, if for no other reason than to have a good stiff ride in the jungle. Mr. Borie preferred to remain with the General, and the Colonel alone of the party went into the hunt. At six, our party left the residency, and drove out in the cool of the morning for six or seven miles. When they came to the jungle, horses were in readiness, with bullock-carts, and a swarm of attendants. The Colonel had had his own share of hunting on the frontiers, and as a cavalryman had a good eye and a good |