The Gorgeous East.

Hokitika Guardian, 11 March 1922, Page 2

The Gorgeous East.

MARVELS SEEN BY THE PRINCE. In a dispatch from India at the end of December, the special correspondent f tlie London “Times” attached to the Prince of Wales’s party wrofe: Not only the Prince himself but -very member of his party to whom • ndia is new must by now have some •dea of what is meant by the phrase the gorgeous East.’

“Udaipur! Take all the palaces in

■ arious countries which you happen to Allow, and set them together, welded into one colossal range of buildings, be walls of which rise flat and sheer from arcliicd colonnades below to etld n towers arid cupolas abdvfi. Paifft t all pure white; Wreath it aborit the eet with dark foliage, getting the efect of the white villas rising above orange trees which you see in itaiy,

sut on an infinitely vaster scale: Set bis magnificent pile, thus wreathed

lion the shores of Lake Como or Kalinet or Killarney, or whatever lake on think most beautiful. On islands rising out of the blue waters set other palaces, smaller but equally white and embosomed in green. Give it a back;round of hills, half translucent, like, sgain, the Italian hills, and sunlight nigliter and a sky clearer than you

avo ever seen. The Palace fronts westward over the lake; so, at sunset ou go out to one of the other island •alaces and thence look back upon the icene—lake, white walls, green trees, md farther hills—all glowing in the /arm rays, while from'the shores beind you long shadows creep across the •/a ter.

A REALM OF GOLDEN LIGHT. “Some four hours later, when the elvet night lias settled down, you ilnninate it all, picking out every line nd detail of the architecture and riugag the whole lake round with infinite

lyriads of tiny oil lamps, mere wicks •1 at in small glass bowls of oil. At faroda there were 50,000 such lamps sc.l on the screens, masts, arches of

hc street decorations alone. How ■lany tens of thousands are used round he lake at Udaipur I do not know; but the little lights constantly flicker ihd waver, and their reflections in the water flicker too, till everything—palices, shores, islands, boats at their moorings, and the very lake itself—is all a-shinnner with golden light, and is almost too beautiful to be of earth. “Out from Ajmere are the temples of Pushkar, a place of almost unrivalled sanctity for the last 2000 years. Here is the only temple to Brahma in India. You go out by a road where apes—the long grey langurs—leap, with their tails looped absurdly over their hacks, alongside your motor-car, and peacocks scream at you from the roofs of wayside shrines. By the temples is a tank or lake full of huge crocodiles. There are said to be ovUr 100 of them, but you will see only a dozen or so, either moving slowly about or heaped on a small island where they have cormorants for company. They are all large, repulsive beasts. A RAJPUT STRONGHOLD.

“You have heard of the fortress rock of Jodhpur. If you call up memories of the Acropolis at Athens, of Carcassonne, of that royal hill that rises in’ the middle of' Serbian, Skopie, you will still be something short of the impressive majesty of Jodpur fort. Stupendous it is from below, and marvellous from within. Here is concentrated all the pride and martial glory of the great Rajput chiefs of Marwar. “The thunder of hooves on the parade ground when the Prince reviewed the Imperial Service Lancers of Jodhpur, the young Maharajah at their head; and the thrill of it as they came across the red-brown plain, one unbroken line of six troops abreast, emerging from a cloud of dust thicker than ever was battle smoke. It was a scrumptious scene—there is no other word-—and beside the Prince, old Sir Pertahi Singh, Prince and Regent of Princes, sat with a seat in the saddle (at 78 years of age) that few living men can match. 5 ’