This ornate capital on the plains, hemmed in by fortress-crowned hills, is a veritable stronghold of feudal barons and armed retainers, of hermits and monasteries, and is dotted with palaces and public buildings pertaining to the Maharajah's rule. Many of the structures are new enough to suggest what Americans love to call "modern conveniences." The principal streets are broader than Broadway, as well paved, and illuminated by gas systematically enough installed to indicate the presence behind the scenes of European engineers. Strange to say, Jeypore is an Indian city wherein the lordly Briton in khaki is never seen: if the English functionary be here, his master is none other than the Maharajah. Through its streets surge a people almost childish in their happiness, some in ekkas drawn by matched pairs of bullocks, others mounted high on the backs of trotting camels, while bands of chattering Rajputs on foot are omnipresent--every grouping reminds of something witnessed on the stage, and the _tout ensemble_ might be the great scene of a realistic opera intended to glorify the people and the institutions of India. Feminine adornment is carried in Jeypore to its extreme. The bright-hued skirts of the women are flare-fashioned and "fuller," in dressmakers' parlance, than anything dared by Fay Templeton. But the Jeypore beauty's real passion is for gold and silver jewelry, and she carries this to a degree unrivaled by the women of any other section of India. It is not trifling with fact to say that the average Rajput woman wears from eight to ten pounds in silver on ankles and toes, and bracelets enough to sheath arms from wrist to elbow. Every feminine Jeypore nose bears some metal ornamentation--gold studs through the nostrils, and generally a hoop of gold depending a full inch below the point of the chin. Their ears are deformed by the wealth of metal hanging from lobe or strung on the upper rim of that organ. It can be said of Jeypore's fair sex that they are bimetallists in the strictest sense. The argument of the savings-bank has probably never been brought to their attention, for when one of them has a little money ahead she purchases a silver ornament for her person; and if a windfall come to her by legacy or otherwise, she buys something of gold, most likely a necklace of barbaric design. When one of these women goes to the market-place or the public well, she wears everything of value she possesses, and for the best of reasons her home is never pilfered. Rajput men and women look a visitor in the face, and by their smiling countenances seem to welcome you to their country. They lack the broken-spirited look and sullen servility of Indian peoples overlorded by Thomas Atkins. In Jeypore there are grandees and warriors, painted dogs, hunting leopards, bedecked horses, and hulking elephants in every street picture--and these pictures change with the facility of groupings of the kaleidoscope.