=Palace and Gardens.=—I now retired to the palace and gardens built by Raja Ajit; of which, however superb, it is impossible for the pen to give a definite idea. Suites of colonnaded halls, covered with sculpture of easy and even graceful execution, some with screens of lattice-work to secure the ladies from the public gaze, are on the lower range; while staircases lead to smaller apartments intended for repose. The gardens, though not extensive, as may be supposed, being confined within the adamantine walls reared by the hand of Nature, must be delightfully cool even in summer. Fountains, reservoirs, and water-courses, are everywhere interspersed; and though [731] the thermometer in the open air was 86°,[4.27.32] the cold within doors (if this be not a solecism, considering that there were no doors) was excessive. Some attention was paid to its culture; besides many indigenous shrubs, it boasted of some exotics. There was the golden champa,[4.27.33] whose aroma is overpowering, and if laid upon the pillow will produce headache; the pomegranate, at once “rich in flower and fruit”; the apple of Sita, or Sitaphala, which, from similitude of taste, we call the custard-apple; a delicious species of the plantain, whose broad, verdant, glossy leaf alone inspires the mind with the sensation of coolness; the mogra;[4.27.34] the chameli, or jessamine; and the queen of flowers, the barahmasha,[4.27.35] literally the ‘twelve-month,’ because it flowers throughout the year. It is a delightful spot, and I felt a peculiar interest in it. Let the reader imagine the picture of a solitary Englishman scribbling amidst the ruins of Mandor: in front a group of venerable mango-trees; a little further an enormous isolated tamarind, “planted by the hand of a juggler in the time of Nahar Rao, the last of the Pariharas, before whom he exhibited this proof of legerdemain,” and, as the legend goes, from whose branches the juggler met his death:[4.27.36] amidst its boughs the long-armed tribe, the allies of Rama, were skipping and chattering unmolested; while beneath, two Rathor Rajputs were stretched in sleep, their horses dozing beside them, standing as sedately as the statue of ‘Black Caesar’: a grenadier Sepoy of my escort parading by a camp-basket, containing the provender of the morning, completes the calm and quiet scene.