In one of the higher bastions stands a curious specimen of one of the earliest _mitrailleuses_--a cumbrous machine carrying twenty gun-barrels in two rows, which small-arm fire is flanked by two tiny cannon. As a muzzle-loading implement its value after the first discharge would be insignificant; but the soldiers lounging by assured the Englishman that it had done good service in its time: it was eaten with rust. A man may spend a long hour in the upper tiers of the Palaces, but still far from the roof-tops, in looking out across the desert. There are Englishmen in these wastes, who say gravely that there is nothing so fascinating as the sand of Bikanir and Marwar. “You see,” explained an enthusiast of the Hat-marked Caste, “you are not shut in by roads, and you can go just as you please. And, somehow, it grows upon you as you get used to it, and you end, y’know, by falling in love with the place.” Look steadily from the Palace westward where the city with its tanks and serais is spread at your feet, and you will, in a lame way, begin to understand the fascination of the desert which, by those who have felt it, is said to be even stronger than the fascination of the road. The city is of red-sandstone and dull and sombre to look at. Beyond it, where the white sand lies, the country is dotted with camels limping into the Ewigkeit or coming from the same place. Trees appear to be strictly confined to the suburbs of the city. Very good. If you look long enough across the sands, while a voice in your ear is telling you of half-buried cities, old as old Time and wholly unvisited by Sahibs, of districts where the white man is unknown, and of the wonders of far-way Jeysulmir ruled by a half distraught king, sand-locked and now smitten by a terrible food and water famine, you will, if it happen that you are of a sedentary and civilised nature, experience a new emotion--will be conscious of a great desire to take one of the lobbing camels and get away into the desert, away from the last touch of To-day, to meet the Past face to face. Some day a novelist will exploit the unknown land from the Rann, where the wild ass breeds, northward and eastward, till he comes to the Indus. That will be when Rider Haggard has used up Africa and a new “She” is needed.