tomed to see. They move forward with head well up, lower lip dropped, and eyes cast down under half-closed lids, imparting to their visage a comical "don't-know-yah" air. Camels do the principal porterage of Jeypore, but there are also in use a remarkably fine breed of oxen, standing fully sixteen hands high.

Former Mahomedan supremacy has left its trace in the considerable sprinkling of Moslem women to be met with in the streets. These are recognizable by their dress, the principal article of which is a pair of trousers, tight from knee to ankle, but otherwise loosely made, superinducing an uneasy feeling that they are gradually coming down. The Rajput women of Hindoo faith dress much more than their sisters in Bombay. In that populous city the garb of the women is based on the model of Miss Nelly Farren's favourite costume in Gaiety burlesque. A strip of cloth wound round the waist, and probably reaching the feet when hanging loose, is caught up between the legs and fastened in waistband at the back, leaving the swarthy limbs exposed downward from above the knee. The dress is, indeed, much the same as the coolies wear, and is contrived in the same dexterous fashion out of a single straight

length of cloth. The Rajput women wear full petticoats coming down to their ankles, affording endless opportunity for display of colour. They sit on the pavement, weaving cloth with a simple wheel and a little basket aglow with the colour of many threads. One of the commonest sights is two women grinding at a mill," as they were in the days of Noe, and so shall be at the coming of the Son of Man," when "one shall be taken and the other left."

The palace of the Maharajah is situated upon the outskirts of the town farthest removed from the railway. It is a poor place, a kind of Lowther Arcade furnished from Tottenham Court Road. Of late years the Maharajah has built his soul a lordly dwellingplace, which is, if possible, worse than the older wing. It is a lofty white building, all bay windows and balconies, apparently built in emulation of a modern hotel at Margate-onthe-Sea. There is nothing in India more pitiful than these ill-disciplined endeavours of historic princes to graft European furniture upon oriental life. The place swarms with retainers, who parcel out visitors among themselves in too ingenious fashion. One solemnly conducts the visitor to the billiard-room. Fancy visiting the home of the lineal descendant of

the Sun god to be shown a billiard-room, with cues, markers, shaded lights, and benches round the walls as may be found and enjoyed in an English hotel! Having steeped his soul in barbaric splendour of the slate table, and shaded his eyes from the oriental glamour of the cues, the stranger is handed over to another attendant, who takes him to a reception room with furniture (Tottenham Court Road) massed in the centre as if there had been a ball yesterday, or were to be one to-night. There was a third attendant whose special preserve was a drawing-room, with Axminster carpets on the floor, glass chandeliers pendant from the ceiling, a marble consol-table, some bow-legged chairs, and many mirrors. I looked in at the door, turned and fled, with the three attendants after me, each demanding backsheesh.

Passing through a courtyard I saw a group of men squatted on the pavement, who broke the horrid nightmare, and relieved the place from the aspersion of an ambitiously genteel furnished lodging-house. All wore flowing robes, crowned with turbans of many colours. They were playing a game something like draughts, except that the chessboard, made of embroidered cloth, was shaped like a Maltese cross. Four men played, a dozen looked on.

Before a player made a move he threw over one limb of the cross three oblong-shaped dice. I could not get any inkling of the game, but an essential part of it evidently was that each time the dice was thrown the assembled company, players and spectators, must proceed to conduct themselves as if murder were imminent. Faces grew black as thunder; eyes flashed under beetling turbans; frantic gesticulations were made with both hands; and everybody shouted at the top of his voice. The storm ceased as suddenly as it had commenced, and amid dead silence the man who had thrown the dice moved one of the counters on the cloth. Then the next man took up the dice, threw them over a limb of the cross, and once more murder was the matter. This alternation of riot and silence proceeded with unvaried regularity during the ten minutes I stood and watched; but nobody was killed. The outbreaks prolonged the game, but added zest.

Jeypore, like Delhi, has its half-ruined and deserted palaces. In earlier days, when the Rajputs were always on the war-path, their sovereign lived in a half palace, half fortress, perched on a rock some six miles out of the present capital. Amber (pronounced am-beer) is to be approached with convenience

in a shabby green velvet box, much the worse for constant handling. There is in another equally shabby box of tawdry green velvet a portion of the Koran writ by the hand of Mahomet's grandson. King Tamerlane, the showman says, brought these precious things from Medina.

Even of more absorbing interest is a red hair shown under glass in a mean little tin box, and looking at first sight like a cutting of stout thread. This is a hair from the beard of Mahomet, miraculously preserved through all these centuries. In another box is a stone with four very decided toe marks. This is the impress of Mahomet's foot. Looking at this bit of marble, and its deep imprint gravely held out to view by the hoary Mussulman in charge, it is borne in upon one that the Prophet was not a man in whose way it would be safe to stand. The hut in which these relics are kept is something like the dark room of a photographer, a similitude strengthened by the hasty manner in which the old Mussulman dives in, brings a relic out to the daylight, and when it has been duly examined, disappears in search of a second

one.

On a rail in front of the shed were tied bits of string and scraps of red and blue rag.