a. Whoever has seen the Palace of Boondi can easily
picture to himself the hanging gardens of Semiramis." This is true--and
more too. To give on paper any adequate idea of the Boondi-ki-Mahal is
impossible. Jeypore Palace may be called the Versailles of India;
Udaipur's House of State is dwarfed by the hills round it and the spread
of the Pichola Lake; Jodhpur's House of Strife, grey towers on red rock,
is the work of giants, but the Palace of Boondi, even in broad daylight,
is such a Palace as men build for themselves in uneasy dreams--the work
of goblins more than of men. It is built into and out of the hillside,
in gigantic terrace on terrace, and dominates the whole of the city. But
a detailed description of it were useless. Owing to the dip of the
valley in which the city stands, it can only be well seen from one
place, the main road of the city; and from that point looks like an
avalanche of masonry ready to rush down and block the gorge. Like all
the other Palaces of Rajputana, it is the work of many hands, and the
present Raja has thrown out a bastion of no small size on one of the
lower levels, which has been four or five years in the building. No one
knows where the hill begins and where the Palace ends. Men say that
there are subterranean chambers leading into the heart of the hills, and
passages communicating with the extreme limits of Taragarh, the giant
fortress that crowns the hill and flanks the whole of the valley on the
Palace side. They say that there is as much room under as above ground,
and that none have traversed the whole extent of the Palace. Looking at
it from below, the Englishman could readily believe that nothing was
impossible for those who had built it. The dominant impression was of
height--height that heaved itself out of the hillside and weighed upon
the eyelids of the beholder. The steep slope of the land had helped the
builders in securing this effect. From the main road of the city a steep
stone-paved ascent led to the first gate--name not communicated by the
zealous following. Two gaudily painted fishes faced each other over the
arch, and there was little except glaring colour ornamentation visible.
This gate gave into what they called the _chowk_ of the Palace, and one
had need to look twice ere realising that this open space, crammed with
human life, was a spur of the hill on which the Palace stood, paved and
built over. There had been little attempt at levelling the ground. The
fo