as of speed
and progress may whirl up the big central railroad from Bombay to Ajmere.
But they stop at the junction. They do not travel along the Maharajah's
private lines to Chitipur, where he, directly descended from an important
and most authentic goddess, dispenses life and justice to his subjects
without even the assistance of the Press. There is little criticism in
the city and less work. A patriarchal calm sleeps in all its streets. In
Chitipur it is always Sunday afternoon. Even down by the lake, where the
huge white many-storeyed palace contemplates its dark-latticed windows
and high balconies mirrored in still water unimaginably blue nothing
which could be described as energy is visible. You may see an elephant
kneeling placidly in the lake while an attendant polishes up his trunk
and his forehead with a brickbat. But the elephant will be too
well-mannered to trumpet his enjoyment. Or you may notice a fisherman
drowsing in a boat heavy enough to cope with the surf of the Atlantic.
But the fisherman will not notice you--not even though you call to him
with dulcet promises of rupees. You will, if you wait long enough, see a
woman coming down the steps with a pitcher balanced on her head; and
indeed perhaps two women. But when your eyes have dwelt upon these
wonders you will have seen what there is of movement and life about the
shores of those sleeping waters. It was in accordance with the fitness of
things that the city and its lake should be three miles from the railway
station and quite invisible to the traveller. The hotel however and the
Residency were near to the station, and it was the Residency which had
brought Thresk out of the crowds and tumult of Bombay. He put up at the
hotel and enclosing Repton's introduction in a covering letter sent it by
his bearer down the road. Then he waited; and no answer came.

Finally he asked if his bearer had returned. Quite half an hour he was
told, and the man was sent for.

"Well? You delivered my letter?" said Thresk.

"Yes, Sahib."

"And there was no answer?"

"No. No answer, Sahib," replied the man cheerfully.

"Very well."

He waited yet another hour, and since still no acknowledgment had come he
strolled along the road himself. He came to a large white house. A
flagpost tapered from its roof but no flag blew out its folds. There was
a garden about the house, the trim well-ordered garden of the English
folk with a lawn and banks of flowers, and a gardener