this, row above row, the resplendent Chiefs and their retinues were seated in order of precedence, which was also the order of arrival, attention to such details being essential so that each should get his proper complement of guns, which kept up a deafening uproar till the proceedings began.

The ceremonial of a durbar is simple and dull: at least it would be dull in European dresses. There is such an intolerable amount of doing the same thing; such a profusion of bowing and backing and coming forward again, all in a decorous and unstimulating silence. But in India nothing can be dull that is done in its best clothes. The mere humble wonder with which one watches the gorgeousness of Maharajas would rescue any function from monotony. To the splendours of native uniforms one can grow accustomed, since they are controlled, or are said to be, by regulation. But there is no restriction to the splendour of a native chief. He has no court nor durbar costume, he is unhampered by precedent, by his own station, or by that of the man for whom he is arrayed. He has to consult only his revelry in colour, which, fortunately, is still unaffected by the modernising of his taste. So he uses his person as a canvas and his wardrobe as a palette, and many of the things he wears are obviously rather parts of a colour scheme than of a costume. Then when he has reached a pitch of lustrous intensity which stirs your despairing envy and

admiration, he takes a shawl of scarlet, violet, gold, and green, or of any other combination that suits his fancy, and wraps it about him from his waist to his knees. And the mystery is that he looks the better for it, even though his waist seldom inclines to slimness and his carriage is no more impressive than that of any other portly gentleman. At the durbar, which interposed many impediments even in the way of grace, one

realised that it was his colour that saved him. He was led from his seat up the central aisle between his political sponsor and an A.D.C., who bowed when they rose, bowed when they announced his name, bowed when they presented him, and bowed as many times after before they returned him to his chair. He carried in his hand his nazar, or tributary gift, which generally takes the form of as many gold mohurs, wrapped in a handkerchief, as he can claim guns in a salute, and the presentation of which signifies that all his revenues are at his Suzerain's disposal. He held it out, the Prince extended a hand to touch it, the proffered revenue being thus remitted, and then he retired backward the length of the aisle, an operation the evident difficulties of which won him all one's condolence. Thus each of the assembled chiefs was presented, from the little burkacovered Begum, who seemed as self-possessed as any, but who made no offering of nazar, to the least Raja of them all.

Then the Prince made a short well - worded speech, which Major Daly-whose father's name is so bound up with the history of the Central India Horse-translated. After this the Chiefs advanced again in turn, with the same deliberate formalities, for the ceremony of attar and pan, which corresponds to the traditional offering of bread and salt, the Prince sprinkling the one upon their extended hands from a silver vinaigrette and handing them the other-which is betel-nut, chunam, and other spices wrapped in a green leaf-from a silver bowl. After the last of the nineteen headmen had received his portion and retired, the political officers, moving down the gay ranks of their retainers, completed the distribution.

The Prince stepped down from the platform, the waving of the chowries of white yak's tails behind the Royal chairs ceased, the gilded fans were raised by the scarlet-coated chobdars, the blazing golden sunshade followed, the Royal procession re-formed, and the durbar was over.

C

CHAPTER V

THE CITY OF SUNRISE

THE SUN was down when we left Indore, but the way was lit for us out of the State by sentinels on either side of the line with aromatic torches flaming above their heads. By day gay galloping horsemen had guarded the railway, but these rigid bronze figures, white-robed, crimson-turbaned, with fire dripping from the scented wood, set along the jungle darkness, each in his space of light, seemed as a part of the older India to push us back into feudal ages with their pretty prodigal ways of courtesy. The sense of feudal days remained when dawn showed us, across the waste plain, half desert, half jungle, over which we were toiling, the filling of walls and forts and bastions in every gap by which a road could enter through the rampart hills of Udaipur. The city itself City of Sunrise its name means, but as the wonderful City of Sunset one remembers it was still miles away, and these barriers in its outermost defences are now but memories of the old strife between Hindu and Muhammadan, between Rajput and Mughal, which began with the driving out of the Rajputs of Chitor by