CHAPTER XVI
UDAIPUR
We arrived, very sleepy and gritty, at Chitor at 5.30 A.M., to find an unprecedented mob of first-class passengers en route for Udaipur, and only one very minute compartment in which to stow them.
The station-master—a solemn Baboo, full of his own importance, becomingly clad in a waving white petticoat, with bare legs and elastic-sided boots, surmounted by a long cutaway frock-coat, topped by a black skull-cap, and finally decorated by a pen behind his ear—seemed totally unable to cope with the terrible problem he was set to solve.
I suggested that another carriage should be put on, but he had none, nor any solution to offer; so we cleared a second-class compartment and divided the party out, and then, with five people in our tiny compartment, we set out on the fifty-mile run to Udaipur.
Five people in a carriage in Europe is nowise unusual, but five people in an Indian one (and that a narrow, very narrow gauge), accompanied by rolls of bedding, tiffin-baskets, and all the quantity of personal luggage which is absolutely necessary, not to speak of a large-sized bird-cage (which cannot, strictly speaking, be classed as a necessary), requires the ingenuity of a professional packer of herrings or figs to adjust nicely!
By cramming the toilet place with bedding, khudsticks, a five-foot brass lamp-stand, and the four soda-water bottles, we made shift to stow portmanteaux, bags, tiffin-baskets, &c., under the seats and ourselves upon them, and then arranged a sort of centre-piece of Jane’s big tin bonnet-box, surmounted by Freddy in his cage. The other passengers were very amiably disposed, and not fat, and they even went so far as to pretend to admire Freddy—a feat of some difficulty, as he is still very bald and of an altogether forbidding aspect. This admiration so won upon the heart of Jane, that in the fulness thereof she served out biscuits and a little tinned butter all round, while Freddy cheerfully spattered food and water upon all indiscriminately.
About eighteen miles from Udaipur we passed the ruins of Ontala. Here, in the stormy time when Jehangir had seized Chitor, there happened a desperate deed.
The Rana of Mewar, expelled from his capital, determined to attack and retake Ontala. Now, the Rajputs were divided into clans as fiery as any of those whose fatal pride went far to ruin Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden. The Chondawats and the Saktawats both claimed the right of forming the vanguard, and the Rana, unable to pronounce in favour of either, subtly decided that the van should be given to the clan which should first enter Ontala.
The Saktawats then made straight for the one and only gateway to the fortress, and, reaching it as day broke, almost surprised the place, but the walls were quickly manned and defended. Foiled for a moment, the leader of the Saktawats threw himself from his elephant, and, placing himself before the great spikes with which the gate was protected against the assault of the beast, ordered the mahout to charge; and so a crushed and mangled corpse was forced into the city on the brow of the living battering-ram, in whose wake the assailants rushed to battle.
Alas! his sacrifice was in vain. The Chondawat chief was already in Ontala. First of the stormers with scaling-ladders, he was shot dead by the defenders ere reaching the top of the rampart, and his corpse fell back among his dismayed followers. Then the chief of Deogurh, rolling the body in his scarf, tied it upon his back, fought his way to the crest of the battlements, and hurled the gory body of his chieftain into the city, shouting, “The vanguard to the Chondawat!”
It is further told how, when the attack began, two Mogul chiefs of note were engaged within upon a game of chess. Confident of the strength of the defence, they continued their game, unheeding the din of battle. Suddenly the foe broke in upon them, upon which they calmly asked for leave to finish their interesting match. The request was granted by the courtly Rajputs, but upon its termination they were both put to death.
Udaipur lies in a well-cultivated basin, shut in by a ring of arid hills. After skirting the flanks of some of the outlying spurs, we bustled through a tunnel and drew up at a bright little station, draped with great blue and pink convolvulus. And this was Udaipur.
We were picked out of the usual jabbering, jostling, gibbering crowd of natives by our host, who, looking most enviably cool and clean, took his heated, dishevelled, and unbarbered guests off to a comfortable carriage, and we were quickly sped towards tiffin and a bath.
The station is a long way from the town, as the Maharana, a most staunch conservative of the old school, having the railway more or less forced upon him, drew the line at three miles from his capital, and fixed the terminus there. One cannot help being glad that the prosaic steam-engine, crowned with foul smoke and heralded by ear-piercing whistles, has not been allowed to trespass in Udaipur, wherein no discordant note is struck by train line or factory chimney, and where everything and every one is as when the city was newly built on the final abandonment of Chitor, the ancient capital of Mewar.
Here in the heart of the most conservative of native States, whose ruler, the Maharana, Sir Fateh Singh, claims descent from that ancient luminary the Sun, we found novelty and interest in every yard of the three miles that stretch between the station and the capital. The scrub-covered desert has given place to a wooded and cultivated valley, ringed by a chain of hills, sterile and steep. The white ribbon of the road, through whose dust plough stolid buffaloes and strings of creaking bullock-carts, is bordered by tall cactus and yellow-flowered mimosa on either side. Among the trees rise countless half-ruined temples and chatries; on whose whitewashed walls are frequent frescoes of tigers or elephants rampant, and of wonderful Rajput heroes wearing the curious bell-shaped skirt, which was their distinctive dress.
The people too, their descendants, who crowd the road to-day, are remarkable—the men fine-looking, with beards brushed ferociously upwards, and all but the mere peasants carrying swords; the women, dark-eyed, and singularly graceful in their red or orange saris, and very full bell-shaped petticoats. Upright as darts, they walk with slightly swaying gesture, a slender brown arm upraised to support the big brass chatties on their heads, revealing an incredible collection of bangles on arms and ankles. These women are the descendants of those who, in the stormy days of the sixteenth century, while the Rajput princes still struggled heroically with the all-powerful Mogul emperors, preferred death to shame, and, led by Kurnavati (mother of Oodi Singh, the founder of Udaipur), accepted the “Johur,” or death by fire and suffocation, to the number of 13,000, while their husbands and brothers threw open the city gates and went forth to fight and fall.
As we drew near our destination the towers of the Maharana’s Palace rose up above the trees, gleaming snowy in the cloudless blue. The brown crenellated walls of the city appeared on our left, and, suddenly sweeping round a curve, we found ourselves by the border of a lovely lake, whose blue-rippled waters lapped the very walls of the town. In the foreground a glorious note of colour was struck by a group of “scarlet women” washing themselves and their clothes by the margin.
Up a steep incline, and we found ourselves before a verandah, blazing overhead with bougainvillea, and our hostess waiting to receive us beneath its cool shade.
In the afternoon, refreshed and rested, we went down to the shore, where our host had arranged for a state-owned boat and four rowers to be in waiting. Armed with rods and fishing tackle, we proceeded to see Udaipur from the lake which washes its northern side. First crossing a small landlocked bay bordered on the left by a long and picturesque crenellated wall, and passing through a narrow opening, we found ourselves in a second division of the water; on the left, still the wall, with a delightful-looking summer-house perched at a salient angle; on the right, small wooded islands, the haunt of innumerable cormorants, who, with snaky necks outstretched, watched us suspiciously from their eyrie.
A curious white bridge, very high in the centre, barred the view of the main lake till, passing through the central arch, we found ourselves in a scene of perfect enchantment. Before us the level sheet of molten silver lay spread, reflecting the snowy palaces and summer-houses that stood amid the palms and greenery of many tiny islands. On the left the city rose from the water in a succession of temples and wide-terraced buildings, culminating in the lofty pile of the Palace of the Maharana. Here, on this enchanted lake, we rowed to and fro until the sun sank swiftly in the west and the red gold glowed on temple and turret.
Then, with our catch, about 15 lbs. weight of most excellent fish, we rowed back past the white city to the landing-place, and, in the gathering dark, climbed the hillock upon which stood our host’s bungalow.
We spent a week at Udaipur—a happy week, whose short days flew by far too quickly. The weather was splendid; hot in the middle of the day—for the season is late, and the monsoon has greatly failed in its cooling duty—but delightful in morning and evening.
Rising one morning at early dawn, before the sun leaped above the eastern hills, we took boat and rowed to one of the island palaces, where, after fishing for mahseer, we breakfasted on a marble balcony overlooking the ripples of the Pichola Lake, which lapped the feet of a group of great marble elephants.
Not the least interesting expedition was to the south end of the lake one afternoon to see the wild pigs fed. Traversing the whole length of the Pichola, past the marble ghâts where the crimson-clad women washed and chattered, while above them rose the roofs and temple domes of the fairy city culminating in the walls and pinnacles of the palace—past the fleet of queer green barges wherein the Maharana disports himself when aquatically inclined, we left the many islands marble-crowned on our right; and finally landed at a little jutting ledge of rock, whence a jungle track led us in a few minutes to a terrace overlooking a rocky and steep slope which fell away from the building near which we stood. The scene was surprising! Hundreds of swine of all sorts and sizes, from grim slab-sided, gaunt-headed old boars, whose ancient tusks showed menacing, to the liveliest and sprightliest of little pigs playing hide-and-seek among their staid relatives, were collected from the neighbouring jungle to scramble for the daily dole of grain spread for them by the Maharana.
A cloud of dust rose thick in the air, stirred up by the busy feet and snouts of the multitude, and grunts and squeals were loud and frequent as a frisky party of younglings in their play would heedlessly bump up against some short-tempered old boar, who in his turn would angrily butt a too venturesome rival in the wind and send him, expostulating noisily, down the hill!
Beyond the crowd of swine on the edge of the clearing, a few peacocks, attracted by the prospect of a meal, held themselves strictly aloof from the vulgar herd.
The whole city of Udaipur is a paradise for the artist—not a corner, not a creature which does not seem to cry aloud to be painted. The only difficulty in such embarras de richesses of subject and such scantiness of time, is to decide what not to do.
Hardly has the enthusiastic amateur sat down to delineate the stately pile of the palace, soaring aloft amid its enveloping greenery, than he is attracted by a fascinating glimpse of the lake, where, perhaps, a royal elephant comes down to drink, or a crimson-clad bevy of Rajputni lasses stoop to fill their brazen chatties with much chatter and laughter.
Bewildered by such wealth of subject, one is but too apt to sit at gaze, and finally go home with merely a dozen pages of scribbles added to the little canvas jotting-book!
The Palace of the Maharana is a very splendid pile of buildings, as seen from some little distance crowning the ridge which rises to the south of the lake, but it loses much of its beauty when closely viewed. It is, of course, not to be compared architecturally with the master-works of Agra and Delhi, and the internal decorations are usually tawdry and uninteresting. The entrance is fine; the visitor ascends the steep street to the principal gate, a massive portal, strengthened against the battering of elephants by huge spikes, and decorated by a pair of these animals in fresco-rampant. Beyond the first gate rises a second or inner gate. On the right are huge stables where the royal elephants are kept, and on the left stand a row of curious arches, beneath one of which the Maharanas of old were wont to be weighed against bullion after a victory, the equivalent to the royal avoirdupois being distributed as largesse to his people!
Within the gates, a long and wide terrace stretches along the entire front of the Palace, on the face of which is emblazoned the Sun of Mewar, the emblem of the Sesodias. This terrace was evidently the happy home of a great number of cows, peacocks, geese, and pigeons, which stalked calmly enough, among the motley crowd of natives, and gave one the impression of a glorified farmyard. The building itself, like most Indian palaces, is composed of a heterogeneous agglomeration in all sorts of sizes and styles. Each successive Maharana having apparently added a bit here and a bit there as his capricious fancy prompted.
Jane visited the armoury to-day with the Resident, who went to choose a shield to be presented by the Maharana to the Victoria Museum at Calcutta. I chose to go sketching, and was derided by Jane for missing such a chance of seeing what is not shown to visitors as a rule. She whisked away in great pomp in the Residential chariot, preceded by two prancing sowars on horseback, and subsequently thus related her experiences:—
“We really drove up far too fast to the Palace, I was so much interested in the delightful streets; and we just whizzed past the innumerable shrines and queer shops, and frescoed walls, where extraordinary lions and tigers, and Rajput warriors, riding in wide petticoats on prancing steeds, were depicted in flaming colours. I wanted, too, to gaze at the native women, in their accordion-pleated, dancing frocks of crimson or dark blue; but it seemed to be the correct thing for a ‘Personage’ to drive as fast as possible, and try to run over a few people just to show them what unconsidered trifles they were. Well, we were received at the entrance to the Palace by one of the Prime Ministers. There are two Prime Ministers—one to criticise and frustrate the schemes of the other; the result being, as the Resident remarked, that it is not easy to get any business done. Our Prime Minister was dressed in a coat of royal purple velvet, on his head was wound a big green turban, and round his neck hung a lovely necklet of pearls and emeralds, with a pendant of the same, he had also earrings to match. It was truly pitiful to see such ornaments wasted on a fat old man.”
“Going up a narrow and rather steep staircase, we came to a small hall full of retainers of his Highness, waiting until it should please him to appear and breakfast with them, for it is the custom of the Maharana to make that meal a sort of public function. In the middle of the hall reposed a big bull, evidently very much at ease and quite at home!”
“A few more steps brought us to the door of the armoury. This is small and badly arranged, which seems a pity, as there were some lovely things. Chain armour and inlaid suits lay about the floor in heaps; and we were shown the saddle used by Akbar during the last siege of Chitor. The most remarkable things, however, were the Rajput shields, of which there were some beautiful specimens. They are circular, not large, and made, some of tortoiseshell, some of polished hippo hide, &c. One was inlaid with great emeralds, a second had bosses of turquoise, and a really lovely one was inlaid with fine Jaipur enamel in blue and green. There were swords simply encrusted with jewels—one with a hilt of carved crystal; another was a curiously-modelled dog’s head in smooth silver, and I noticed a beauty in pale jade. Altogether it was a most fascinating collection, different from, but in its way quite as interesting, as the fine armoury at Madrid.”
Thus did Jane triumph over me with her description of what she had seen and what I had missed; and I had been trying to delineate the Temple of Jagganath, and had been disastrously defeated, for it is indeed a complicated piece of drawing, and the children, both large and small, crowded round me to my great hindrance. Therefore, it was not until I had been soothed with an excellent lunch, and the contents of a very long tumbler, that I felt strong enough to take an intelligent interest in the contents of the Maharana’s curiosity-shop!
Monday, October 30.—The more we see of Udaipur the more we are charmed with it. The whole place is so absolutely unspoilt by modernism, is so purely Eastern—and ancient Eastern at that—that we feel as though we were in a little world far apart from the great one where steam and electricity shatter the nerves, and drive their victims through life at high pressure.
Ringed in by a rampart of arid hills, beyond which the scrub-covered desert stretches for miles, the peaceful city of Udaipur lies secluded in an oasis, whose centre is a turquoise lake. High in his palace the Maharana rules in feudal state, and, like Aytoun’s Scottish Cavalier,
“A thousand vassals dwelt around—all of his kindred they,
And not a man of all that clan has ever ceased to pray
For the royal race he loves so well.”
For to his subjects the Maharana is little less than a divinity, for is he not a direct descendant of the Sun? Likewise is he not the chief of the only royal house of Rajputana, who disdained to purchase Mogul friendship at the price of giving a daughter in marriage to the Mohammedan?
There are greater personages among the ruling Princes of India, according to British ruling—Hyderabad, for instance. And in the matter of precedence and the number of guns for ceremonial salutation, the Chief of Mewar—like other poor but proud nobles—is treated rather according to his actual power than the cloudless blue of his blood. Hence he is extremely unwilling to put himself in a position where he might fail to obtain the honour which he considers due to him. He was most averse from attending the Delhi Durbar, but such pressure was put upon him that he was induced to proceed thither in his special train running, as far as Chitorgarh, upon his own special railway. He reached Delhi, and his sponsors rejoiced that they had indeed got him to the water, although they had not exactly induced him to drink. As a matter of fact, the Maharana, having gone to Delhi to please the British authorities, promptly returned to Udaipur to please himself, alleging a terrific headache as reason for instant departure from the capital, without his having left his very own specially reserved first-class compartment!
He may not be a willing guest, but he is evidently disposed to be an excellent host, for great preparations are toward for the reception of the Prince of Wales, who is expected in the course of a fortnight or so.
The Residency, too, is being swept and garnished, the garden already looking like a miniature camp, with tents for the suite all among the flower-beds.
Tuesday, October 31.—A day or two ago we arose betimes, and before sunrise embarked in the State gig (which was always, apparently, placed at our host’s disposal on demand), and set forth to catch fish for our breakfast, and then proceed to eat the same on one of the island palaces on the lake. We did not catch many fish—the mahseer were shy that morning—but fortunately we did not entirely depend on the caprices of the mahseer for our sustenance, and a remarkably well-fed and contented quartette we were when we got into the gig while the day was yet young, and rowed home as quickly as might be in order to escape the heat which at noonday is still great.
This afternoon we went for a (to us) novel tea picnic. A State elephant appeared by request, and we climbed upon him with ladders, and he proceeded to roll leisurely along at the rate of about two and a half miles an hour towards the foot of a hill, on the top of which stood a small summer palace.
The afternoon was warm, and the rhythmic pace drowsy, but our steed was determined to amuse us and benefit himself. So he blew great blasts of spray at his own forelegs and chest to cool himself, and now and then made shocking bad shots at so large a target, and, getting a trifle too much elevation, nearly swept us from our lofty perch.
Fortunately his stock of spray gave out ere long, or he found that the increasing gradient of the hill took all his breath, for we were left at leisure to admire the widening view until we reached the top.
Here we had tea in one of the cool halls, and then sat watching the sun sink towards the hills that stretch to Mount Aboo.
To the south-east lay Udaipur, milk-white along the margin of its “marléd” waters.
On our way home we met with an adventure. While prattling to my hostess, I observed that our toes were rising unduly, the saddle or howdah being seated somewhat after the fashion of an outside car. Glancing over my shoulder I descried Jane and her partner far below their proper level. The howdah was coming round, and our steed was eleven feet high! Agonised yells to the gentleman who guided the deliberate steps of the pachyderm from a coign of vantage on the back of his neck, awoke him to an appreciation of the situation. The elephant was “hove to” with all possible despatch, and we crawled off his back with the greatest celerity. We then sat down by the roadside and superintended the righting of the saddle and the tautening of the girths by several natives, who “took in the slack” with an energy that must have made the poor elephant very “uncomfy” about the waist! I secretly hoped it was hurting him horribly, as I had not forgiven him for his practical jokes on the way up.
We had no more thrills. Resuming our motor ’bus, in due course, we were landed opposite the top of our host’s verandah, whereupon the beast shut himself up like a three-foot rule, and we got to ground.
The inexorable flight of time brought us all too soon to the limit of our stay at Udaipur. Early on Wednesday the 1st November, therefore, we bade adieu to the capital of the State of Mewar, and, accompanied by our kind host and hostess, set out to spend a day in exploring the ruined city of Chitor before taking train for Bombay.
As we drove to the station, we passed the group of ancient “chatries” or tombs of dead and gone Ranas of Mewar, and halted for a short inspection, as, the train by which we were to travel to Chitorgarh being a “special,” we were not bound to a precise moment for our appearance on the platform.
Jane, who is perfectly Athenian in her passion for novelty, decided to travel on the engine, and proceeded to do so; until, at the first halting-place, a grimy and somewhat dishevelled female climbed into our carriage, and the next half-hour was fully occupied in scooping smuts out of her eyes with teaspoons.
It had been arranged that an elephant should await our arrival at Chitorgarh to take us up to the ancient city, but a careful search into every nook and cranny failed to reveal the missing animal.
So my host and I set out on foot to cross a mile or so of plain which spread in deceptive smoothness between us and the ascent to the city. What seemed a serene and level track became quickly entangled in a maze of rough little knobs and nullahs, and we took a vast amount of exercise before arriving at the old bridge which spans the Gamberi River.
Meanwhile, towering over the scrubby bushes and surrounded by a dusty halo, the dilatory pachyderm bore down upon us, and, after the mahout had been interviewed in unmeasured terms by my host, went rolling slowly to the station to pick up the ladies.
The ancient city of Chitor lies crumbling and desolate on the back of a long, level-topped hill, which rises solitary to the height of some five hundred feet above the far-stretching plain. Kipling likens it to a great ship, up the sides of which the steep road slopes like a gangway. At the foot lies the modern village, squalid but picturesque.
As we toil, perspiring, up the long ramp which for a weary mile slopes sidelong up the scarped flank of the mountain, and pass through the seven gates which guarded the way, and every one of which was the scene of many a grim and bloody struggle, I will try to sketch the outline of the history of the famous fort, for many centuries the headquarters of the royal race of Mewar.
The Gehlotes, or (as they were afterwards styled) the Sesodias, claim descent from the Sun through Manu, Icshwaca, and Rama Chandra, as indeed do the other Rajput potentates of Jaipur, Marwar, and Bikanir, the Rana of Mewar, however, taking precedence owing to his descent from Lava, the eldest son of Rama.
The ancient dynasty of Mewar has fallen from its high estate, but the history of its rise is lost in the mists of grey antiquity.
“We can trace the losses of Mewar, but with difficulty her acquisitions…. She was an old-established dynasty when all the other States were in embryo.” Long before Richard of the Lion-heart fared to Palestine to wrest the Holy City from the infidel, “a hundred kings, its (Mewar’s) allies and dependants, had their thrones raised in Chitor,” to defend it against the sword of the Mohammedan; while overhead floated the banner displaying the golden sun of Mewar on a crimson field.
Some centuries later the Crusaders brought to Europe from the plains of Palestine the novel device of armorial bearings.
Chitor itself appears to have been in possession of the Mori princes until, in A.D. 728, it was taken by Bappa, who, though of royal race, was brought up in obscurity by the Bhils as an attendant on the sacred kine. This shepherd prince, ancestor of the present Rana of Mewar, became a national hero, and many legends are still current concerning him and his romantic deeds. The story of his “amazing marriage,” by which he succeeded in wedding six hundred damsels all at once, is one of the most curious. Bappa, while still a youth, was appealed to, one holiday, by the frolicsome maidens of a neighbouring village, who, led by the daughter of the Solankini chief of Nagda, in accordance with the custom upon this particular saint’s day, had come out to indulge in swinging, but who had forgotten to supply themselves with a swinging-rope. Bappa agreed to get them one if they would play his game first. This the young ladies readily agreed to do; whereupon, all joining hands, he danced with them a certain mystic number of times round a sacred tree.
“Regardless of their doom, the little victims played,”
and finally dispersed to their homes, entirely unconscious that they were all as securely married to Bappa as though they had visited Gretna Green with him.
Some time afterwards, upon the engagement of the Solankini maiden to an eligible young man, the soothsayer, to whom application had been made with regard to fixing a favourable and auspicious wedding-day, discovered from certain lines in her hand that the girl was already married! Thus the whole story came out, and no less than six hundred brides assumed the title of Mrs. Bappa.
He seems to have had a passion for matrimony, for when an old man he left his children and his country, and carried his arms west to Khorassan, where he wedded new wives and had a numerous offspring. He died at the age of a hundred!
From the days of the very much married Bappa, until the time of Samarsi, who was Prince of Chitor in the thirteenth century, the city continued to flourish and increase in power and importance. Samarsi, having married Pirtha, sister of Prithi Raj, the lord of Delhi, joined his brother-in-law against Shabudin. For three days the battle raged, until the scale fell finally in favour of Shabudin, and the combined forces of Delhi and Chitor were almost annihilated. “Pirtha, on hearing of the loss of the battle, her husband slain, her brother captive, and all the heroes of Delhi and Cheetore ‘asleep on the banks of the Caggar in a wave of the steel,’ joined her lord through the flames.”
From that time forward the history of Chitor is but a tale of sack and slaughter, relieved in its murkiest days by flashes of brilliant heroism and self-sacrificing devotion while the chivalrous Rajputs struggled vainly against the successive waves of the Mohammedan invasions, which in a fierce flood for centuries swept over India, and deluged it with blood.
In the year 1275 Lakumsi became Rana of Chitor. His uncle Bheemsi had married Padmani, a fair daughter of Ceylon, and her beauty was such that the fame of it came to the ears of Alla-o-din, the Pathan Emperor.
He promptly attacked the fortress, but without success for a long period, until he agreed to a compromise, declaring that if he could merely see the Lady Padmani in a mirror he would be contented and raise the siege.
His request was granted, and, trusting to the honour of a Rajput, he entered the city unattended, and was rewarded by a sight of this Eastern Helen reflected in a mirror. Desirous of showing equal faith in a noble enemy, Bheemsi accompanied Alla back to his lines, but there he was captured and held to ransom, Padmani being the price.
Word was now sent to the Emperor that Padmani would be delivered to him, and seven hundred covered litters were prepared to convey her and her ladies to Delhi, but each litter was borne by six armed bearers, and contained no “silver-bodied damsels with musky tresses,” but only steel-clad warriors, who, upon arrival in the Moslem camp, sprang from their concealment as surprisingly as Pallas from the head of Zeus.
Alla-o-din was, however, not to be caught napping, and, being prepared for all contingencies, a fierce combat took place, and the warriors of Chitor were hard put to it to stand their ground until Bheemsi had escaped to the stronghold on a fleet horse. Then the devoted remnant retreated, pursued to the very gates by their foes. The flower of Chitor had perished, but they had achieved their object. This was called the “half sack” of Chitor.[1]
[1] These notes on the history of Chitor are taken, it need hardly be said, from Tod’s Rajast’han, he being the authority on Rajputana. An account of the above incident is given somewhat differently by Maurice in his Modern History of Hindostan (1803), who also relates that Akbar used the same trick to enter Rhotas in Behar, after being long baffled by the apparent impregnability of that fortress.
Fifteen years later, Alla-o-din once more attacked Chitor, and this time the assaults were so deadly that the garrison was decimated and utter annihilation stared the survivors in the face. Then to the Rana appeared the guardian goddess of the city, who warned him that “if twelve who wear the diadem bleed not for Chitor, the land will pass from the line.” Now the prince had twelve sons, and, in obedience to the goddess and in hope of eventually saving their dynasty, eleven of them cheerfully headed sorties on eleven following days, and were slain, until only Ajeysi, the youngest, was left alive. Then the Kana prepared for the end. He sent the boy Ajeysi with a small band by a secret way, and he escaped to Kailwarra, so that the royal race of Chitor should not become extinct. Then the women of the city, with the noble Padmani at their head, accepted the Johur; “the funeral pyre being lighted within the great subterranean retreat,” they steadfastly marched into the living grave rather than yield themselves to the will of the conqueror. All being now ready for the last act of the hideous drama, the Rana caused the gates to be opened, and with his valiant remnant of an army fell upon the foe only to perish to a man, and then, and not till then, did the victorious Alla set foot of a conqueror within Chitor, where now no living thing remained to stay him from razing her deserted temples to the ground. The palace of Padmani alone was spared in this, the first “saka” of Chitor.[2]
[2] The Jain Tower of Fame was also left standing, it dates from about A.D. 900.
The wrecked stronghold remained an appanage of the Mogul until Hamir, who, though not the direct heir of Ajeysi, had gained the chieftainship through his valour, and who, having married a ward of the Hindu governor of Chitor, by her help regained possession of the fortress.
Defeating the Emperor Mahmoud, Hamir entered Chitor in triumph, and once again the standard of the Sun floated over its blood-stained rocks. The Emperor Mahmoud himself was led captive into Chitor, and kept prisoner there for three months until he regained his liberty by surrendering Ajmere, Rinthumbore, Nagore, and Sooe Sopoor, with fifty lacs of rupees and a hundred elephants. By this victory Hamir became the sole Hindu prince of power in India; and the ancestors of the present lords of Marwar and Jaipur brought their levies and paid homage, together with the chiefs of Boondi, Abu, and Gwalior.
Then ensued for Chitor a period of splendid prosperity, during which rose many noble buildings, amongst the ruins of which the great Tower of Victory still soars supreme. This splendid monument[3] was raised to commemorate the victory gained by Koombho over Mahmoud, King of Malwa, and the Prince of Guzzerat, who in A.D. 1440 had formed a league against Chitor. The Rana met them at the head of 100,000 troops and 1400 elephants, and overthrew them, and the commemorative tower was begun in 1451 and finished in ten years.
[3] It is also attributed to Lakha Rana, A.D. 1373.
The State of Mewar reached the zenith of her glory in 1509, when 80,000 horse, seven rajas of the highest rank, nine raos, and 104 chiefs bearing titles of rawul or sawut, with 500 elephants, followed Rana Sanga of Chitor into the field.
The Mogul Baber, who captured Delhi in 1527, was yet unwilling to face the ordeal of battle with the warlike Rajputs, but in the following year Sanga marched against him at the head of the princes of Rajast’han. A terrible battle ensued, which long inclined in favour of the Rajputs, until, through the treachery of a Tuar chief, they were defeated, and the star of Mewar began to decline, although so severe had been the struggle that Baber dared not follow up his victory.
In 1533 Chitor suffered her second “saka” at the hands of Buhadoor or Bajazet, Sultan of Guzzerat, who, after a grim struggle, obtained a footing at the “Beeka” rock, and, springing a mine there, blew up 45 cubits of rampart and killed the Prince of the Haras, with five hundred of his kin. Then the Queen-Mother, Jowahir Bae, clad in armour, headed a sally, and was slain before the eyes of all.
The entrance to the city being forced, the heir of the Sesodias, the infant Oodi Singh, son of Sanga, was placed in safety, while Bagh-ji, Prince of Deola, assuming royalty, prepared to die, for Chitor could only be retained by the Rajput princes while guarded by royalty.
The horrible Johur was decreed, and 13,000 women, headed by Kurnavati, the mother of Oodi Singh,[4] marched to death and honour through the “Gau Mukh,” or entrance to the subterranean tomb; while the city gates were thrown open, and the defenders sallied forth. “Every clan lost its chief,” and 32,000 Rajputs were slain during the siege and storm.
[4] And sister of the Rahtore queen, Jowahir Bae.
Now Kurnavati had bound Hamayoun, the son of Baber, to her cause by a curious ceremony: she having sent him the Rakhi (bracelet), and he having bestowed on her the Katchli (corselet), he was bound, in consequence of this bond, to assist the lady in any time of need. Too late to save Chitor, he retook it, and restored Bikramajit to the throne; but the guardian goddess had turned her face from the doomed city, and its final fall was at hand. The Emperor Akbar, having laid almost all India at his feet, determined to bring the proud princes of Rajputana into subjection. He attacked Chitor, but was foiled by the masculine courage of the Rana’s concubine queen.
Again, in 1568, the Emperor Akbar attacked, and this time he found the fated city in evil case, for Oodi Singh,[5] the Rana, for whom in infancy his nurse had sacrificed her own child, was a degenerate son of his race. He left Chitor to be defended by his lieutenants Jeimul and Putta.
[5] The infant Oodi Singh being threatened with death by conspirators, his Rajputni nurse hid him in a fruit-basket, and, covering it with leaves, had it conveyed out of the fort, substituting her own child just as Bimbir, the usurper, entered the room and asked for the prince. Her pallid lips refused to utter sound, but she pointed to the cradle and saw the swift steel plunged into the heart of her child.
In the first “saka” by Alla, twelve crowned heads defended the “crimson banner” to the death. In the second, when conquest, at the hand of Bahadur, came from the south, the chieftain of Deola, a noble scion of Mewar, claimed the crown of glory and of martyrdom. But on this, the third and greatest struggle, no royal victim appeared to appease the Cybele of Chitor and win her to retain its battlements as her coronet.
When Jeimul fell at the Gate of the Sun, the command devolved upon Putta of Kailwa, a lad of sixteen. His mother commanded him to don “the saffron robe,” then, with him and his young bride, she fell full armed upon the foe, and the heroic trio died before the eyes of the war-worn garrison.
Once more was the Johur commanded, while 8000 Rajputs ate the last “beera” together, and put on their saffron robes. The gates were thrown open, “and few survived to stain the yellow mantle by inglorious surrender.”
Thus in the blood-red cloud of battle sank for ever the Sun of Chitor; for from this, the third and last “saka,” the ruined city never rose. Her doom has been as the doom of Babylon, of which Isaiah declared: “It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation … but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there…. And the wild beasts … shall cry in their desolate houses, and … in their pleasant palaces:… Her days shall not be prolonged.”
The top of the long ascent being reached, the last gate, the Hathi Pol, is passed, and the wayfarer finds himself in the midst of the great dead city, which lies in ruins for three miles along the bastioned brow of the mountain.
Just beyond the first group of stately ruins, we came on the building which was probably the palace built by Lakha Rana in 1373. Here we sat and rested until the elephant, bearing the ladies and the lunch, stalked sedately round the jutting angle of a decayed fort, and then we wended our way along a road lined with many a half-fallen temple, until we reached the ancient palace where, six hundred years ago, dwelt the ill-starred Padmani, whose loveliness brought such woe upon Chitor. Here, in a cool chamber overlooking the tank, upon the brink of which the palace stands, we lunched; afterwards threading our way among the fallen fragments of many a stately shrine and palace towards the high point on which the great Jain Tower of Fame rears its deeply-sculptured shaft into the sky.
For a thousand years the innumerable stone gods which encircle the tower in endless profusion have watched with sightless eyes over the city. Grey already with age were they when they saw, raised in pristine beauty, the shattered domes and broken columns which now lie prone in the brushwood far beneath their feet. What ghastly scenes those stony faces have surveyed, when, swept by the scathing steel, the city has run red with blood, and her defenders have fallen to the last man. One crowning horror, though, they have been always spared, for no maid or matron of Chitor ever deigned to bow her neck beneath the yoke of the Mogul, but rather dared to face a fiery death in the bowels of the great cavern beneath the city than yield her honour to the conqueror.
The Tower of Fame is being repaired by the present Rana, under the superintendence of our host and a party of native workmen. Masons and most skilful carvers in stone were busily engaged in the restoration of parts that had fallen into dangerous decay—an extremely flimsy-looking scaffolding, made apparently of light bamboos, tied together in wisps, and forming a fragile-looking ramp, wound spirally up the outside of the tower. My host seemed to consider it a perfectly safe means of ascent, and as the workmen did not appear to slip off in any appreciable numbers I felt constrained to go up. I should like to have done it on all fours! The climb was well worth undertaking, as it enabled one to inspect the astonishing and finely-carved figures which encrust the whole exterior of the column.
From the Tower of Fame we made our way to the other great landmark of Chitor—the Tower of Victory.
Passing and examining en route many elaborately-carved temples, whose domes rose amid the strangling masses of desert tree and shrub, we came to the base of the red tower, whose shaft, four-square and in perfect preservation, has, with its more venerable brother of Fame, watched for so many centuries over the fallen fortress of Chitor.
Not far away, the rocky wall on which the city stands is shattered into a gloomy chasm, half-hidden in rank vegetation, which, clinging with knotted root to ledge and crevice, hangs darkly over a stagnant pool. Here was the awful portal, “the Gau Mukh,” or “cow’s mouth,” by which, when all was lost to Chitor save honour, her women entered the subterranean cavern while the fuel was heaped high, and an honourable death by suffocation awaited them.
The burning Indian day was over, and the sun blazed red in the west, as we mounted our elephant and paced along the road towards the Hathi Pol. Darker grew the ghostly domes and shattered battlements against a golden sky, and the swift southern night fell, dark yet luminous, as we turned down the hill and left the dead city, splendid in its loneliness and isolation, asleep within its crumbling walls.
Our dinner-table was set out on the platform of the station at Chitorgarh, and our bedrooms were close by, our host and hostess sleeping in the “special” by which they were to return to Udaipur in the morning, while we slept in a siding, ready to be coupled up to the early train from Bombay.
Late into the warm and balmy night we paced the platform; for there seemed to be always something still to say, and we found it hard to part from our charming friends; realising, too, that this was the end of our holiday, and that before us lay merely the toil and bustle of a return to commonplace, everyday life. At last, though, the final fag-end of a cheroot was thrown away, the last hand-grips given, and the parting came.
There is little more to say.
All Thursday we rushed through the wide landscape; saw the parched plains stretch far into the dusty horizon; saw the lean men and leaner cattle, to whom the grim spectre of famine is already foreshadowed; flew past populous villages and creaking water-wheels, noting every phase of a scene now familiar, yet always delightful.
Late in the evening we changed at Baroda, and dawn next morning saw us speeding across the swamps and inlets, which gave place ere long to the palm groves and clustering houses which marked the farther limits of the suburbs of Bombay.
We found the heat—damp and oppressive—very trying after the drier air of Rajputana, and the Taj Mahal Hotel below our expectations in all respects save price. It is undoubtedly better than most Indian hotels, but yet it is not good!
Bombay is chiefly connected in our minds with the inevitable fuss and worry of packing and departure.
As we left the Taj Mahal Hotel, in a conveyance piled high with miscellaneous baggage, we saw the last of our faithful and indispensable Sabz Ali, as he hurriedly quitted the hostelry in our wake, fearful lest undue delay should jeopardise the possession of the spoils he was carrying off, wrapped in bulging bundles of goodly size.
Jane and I were sorrier, I think, to part with him than he with us. After all, we were but troublesome charges, for whose well-being he had to answer to “General ’Oon Sahib,”—charges who had not been quite so lavish with their incalculable riches as they should have been, and who doled out rupees, and even annas, with a sorely grudging hand; still I think Sabz Ali, as he made his way to the station, with many rupees lining his inmost garments, and a flaming “chit” carefully stowed away, felt a certain regret at parting from the “sahibs,” who had really shown a very fine appreciation of his merit, and were sending him back with much honour to his own country.
Late in the afternoon, as the spires and roofs of the city stood dark against the sky, and the many steamers and native dhows showed black upon a flood of liquid gold, the Persia got under way, and we slowly left the anchorage, steaming out into the fading light.
We stood long, leaning over the bulwarks and watching the lights of Bombay, at first so distinct, melt gradually into a line of tiny stars as the gulf widened that separated us from the land where we had spent so many happy days.
I wonder if we shall ever revisit it? I trust so … and yet——
“As a rule it is better to revisit only in imagination the places which have greatly charmed us … for it was not merely the sights that one beheld which were the cause of joy and peace. However lovely the spot, however gracious the sky, these things external would not have availed but for contributory movements of mind and heart and blood—the essentials of the man as then he was.”[6]
[6] “Henry Ryecroft”