to pull us to the bangla. A sleepy khansamah made us comfortable for the rest of the night.
A relay of messengers, and finally a victoria with men in blue palace livery, came from the diwan, or prime minister of the tiny empire, at nine in the morning. We were driven to his house, and went through many anterooms to a cool, dark inner drawing-room, where a portly personage in a mixed Oriental and European costume of white flannel received us with great cordiality. His little daughter, in a woolen hood and many calico coats, but with only jingling anklets to keep her little bare brown feet and legs warm, was brought in and duly admired, and then he presented one Soorajbux, the learned librarian of the high school, who was detailed as our cicerone for the day. He took us first to the modern palace, a suburban villa full of European furniture and notions, where the young raja spent his occasional vacations from the Mayo College at Ajmir. Among the incongruities in the raja's study was a framed chromolithograph of Wood's single-apron binder at work in an American wheat-field. There were inclined planes as well as staircases that the ruler might ride to his bedchamber if he wished, and a beautiful durbar hall with carved window-lattices. From the upper windows we looked down upon a sunken garden, once a sacred tank, where fern- and orchid-houses overflowed with beautiful plants; and by avenues of bo- and banian-trees we reached the garden of the lions, tigers, and bears, home also of wonderful red, blue, and yellow parrots who uttered long Rajput sentences.
