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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ONE OF THE MARBLE ELEPHANTS ON THE JAI SAMAND DAM 

 The sculptor has depicted the great beasts with upraised trunks trumpeting to the rising sun. 



to European travelers. Yet it contains 

 some of the chief wonders of India. The 

 white marble lake-palaces of Udaipur are 

 unsurpassed. The sculptured ruins of its 

 old capital city of Chitor, covering the 

 top of a sheer rock ridge, four miles long 

 and four hundred feet high, shaped like 

 a monster dreadnaught, are unlike any 

 others, in a land where interesting ruins 

 are common. 



Locked away in the Aravalli Hills are 

 marble palaces, temples, and fortresses 

 set on their topmost peaks, with two arti- 

 ficial lakes held by great dams of pure 



white marble, which very few men and 

 only two European women, according to 

 local tradition, have ever seen. 



You can travelfrom Bombay to Delhi 

 without change, skirting the borders of 

 Rajputana, but if you glance at a map 

 you will notice that there is only one rail- 

 road in the state of Mewar. It is a single 

 track, narrow-gauge line which branches 

 off the main line at Chitor and runs to 

 Udaipur, a distance of 69 miles. Apart 

 from these two places, Mewar is inac- 

 cessible to travelers, except through the 

 courtesy of the Maharana of Udaipur. 



