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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



ONCE) THE DWELLING-PLACE OF PRINCESSES 



Although an empty shell, the sheer, unscalable walls of this old royal zenana at Chitor 

 are so well preserved that one might almost expect to see the flutter of a silken sari or gleam 

 of golden ornaments from the balconies. 



Singh is said to have built for Rani 

 Comala, his queen, but it is more prob- 

 able that it was inspired by his romantic 

 passion for a "nightingale - throated" 

 Kashmiri girl and his researches in as- 

 tronomy. The roof court of the Wind 

 Palace is surrounded by a lofty open lat- 

 tice, where the exclusive purdah ladies 

 could "eat the air" without their veils — 

 an ideal spot, too, for studying the con- 

 stellations while listening to the sobbing 

 music of the old-world vina swept by 

 henna-stained finger-tips and to the soft 

 swish of the silken screens flung outward 

 to the night breeze. 



It requires the poetic imagery of the 

 East to depict these dream palaces, which, 

 although swept and garnished by care- 

 takers, have stood empty for a hundred 

 years. Their wild, uninhabited surround- 

 ings, with range upon range of hills melt- 

 ing into a sapphire haze, and their ethereal 

 situation between earth and sky, render 



detailed description flat and colorless. 

 Seen from a distance, in the vivid radi- 

 ance of an Indian moon, the lattice arches 

 gleam like windows of carven pearl re- 

 flected and magnified in the pellucid 

 waters of the lake. 



Jai Samand, because she lures and tricks 

 the beholder by phantom mirages, is 

 called the "Face of Mewar" — a face that 

 photographs itself forever on the memory. 



RAJ SAMAND, A BEAUTIFUL COMPANION 

 LAKE 



Only twenty-five miles from Udaipur, 

 yet a day's journey on horseback or by 

 elephant across wastes of pink sand 

 strewn with boulders of rose- veined mar- 

 ble and dusty thorn cactus, is Raj Sa- 

 mand, another artificial lake, the munifi- 

 cent work of Rana Raj Singh at a cost of 

 $5,000,000, and this, too, at a time when 

 labor was cheap and the material lay in 

 convenient quarries. Like Jai Samand, 



