Internally, the City is surprisingly clean, though with the exception of
the main street, paved after the fashion of Jullundur, of which, men
say, the pavement was put down in the time of Alexander and worn by
myriads of naked feet into deep barrels and grooves. In the case of
Udaipur, the feet of the passengers have worn the rock veins that crop
out everywhere, smooth and shiny; and in the rains the narrow gullies
must spout like fire-hoses. The people have been untouched by cholera
for four years--proof that Providence looks after those who do not look
after themselves, for Neemuch Cantonment, a hundred miles away, suffered
grievously last summer. “And what do you make in Udaipur?” “Swords,”
said the man in the shop, throwing down an armful of _tulwars_,
_kuttars_ and _khandas_ on the stones. “Do you want any? Look here!”
Hereat, he took up one of the commoner swords and flourished it in the
sunshine. Then he bent it double, and, as it sprang straight, began to
make it “speak.” Arm-vendors in Udaipur are a genuine race, for they
sell to people who really use their wares. The man in the shop was
rude--distinctly so. His first flush of professional enthusiasm abated,
he took stock of the Englishman and said calmly:--“What do _you_ want
with a sword?” Then he picked up his goods and retreated, while certain
small boys, who deserved a smacking, laughed riotously from the coping
of a little temple hard by. Swords seem to be the sole manufacture of
the place. At least, none of the inhabitants the Englishman spoke to
could think of any other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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