rooms, the throne room, the domestic living rooms, and the
various offices of the palace, were large and admirably arranged,
furnished in the Eastern fashion. The white marble work was everywhere
exquisite in its finish, and, wherever it was possible, superseded the
use of wood. The windows, opening from all the general apartments,
afforded views across the hills, valleys, and lakes of the city of
Jeypore, two or three leagues away. The group of the harem apartments,
as usual, all opened inward, upon an area where grew orange, lemon, and
fig-trees, full of fruit, also pomegranates and trailing vines,
gracefully arranged. There were many varieties of flowers in bloom
besides roses, which we strongly suspected came from afar. They were too
familiar, those tea, damask, Jaqueminot, Marshal Niel, and moss roses.
The indigenous ones were not nearly so full in leaf or pure in color,
nor so fragrant or beautiful. The spacious marble bath was also in an
open area, or court, shut in from all eyes save those of the denizens
themselves, and of such depth and size as to admit of swimming. This
tiny lake was bordered by thick growing myrtles, and a shrub with a
dagger-like leaf, bearing a trumpet-shaped flower, snow white, but
unknown to us, seemingly of the convolvulus genus. The dark winding
labyrinths and passages from one part of the Ambar Palace to another
were utterly confusing, and of a nature designed to mystify any one but
an habitue. When the palace has its summer complement of residents,
servants and all, it must contain some three hundred souls, besides the
soldiery, who occupy the barracks outside to guard the entrances. It is
a fort as well as a palace, and so arranged as to form a citadel capable
of sustaining a siege, if necessary; while its lofty and commanding
situation is such, that it could not be taken by an attacking force
without great loss of life on their part. We were shown in the basement
a singular shrine or temple, before which was a large, flat stone, where
daily sacrifices of a sheep or goat is made by the priests. In the olden
time human sacrifices took place on the stone, according to the guide.
Fresh signs showed that the ceremony of blood spilling had lately taken
place, and, on inquiry, we were told that the carcass was given as food
to the poor, which was certainly one feature of the practice quite
commendable.

When at last we mounted the elephants to again return to the city, it
was past meridia