as not to be able to see it herself. Lancers on horse-back, state elephants and color-bearers, first appeared in the white archway and, with the troops, ranged themselves around the dazzling court. Silver palanquins with red silk curtains held the royal ladies, and three hundred women attendants muffled in red, yellow, and white draperies chanted as they walked beside them. It was such a brilliant pageant that we could hardly believe it the ordinary weekday proceeding. To prove how much more splendid Alwar rulers could be on gala occasions, they showed us a two-story red and gold elephant carriage in which fifty people ride in state processions, and store-houses full of jeweled elephant trappings.
Then we saw the chetahs, or hunting leopards, huge spotted yellow cats, blindfolded and wearing funny little leather caps, and tied head, tail, and legs to a cage or skeleton stall. They stood inert as wooden cats, and would neither growl, snap, nor even wink when the keepers tried to rouse them, two men lifting a chetah and setting it down as they might lift and move a four-legged table. In the jail yard and workshops the law breakers were contentedly weaving carpets, dhurries, and cloth, making paper, grinding corn, and otherwise making themselves useful. The leader, a red-handed murderer, chanted the carpet pattern, and his fellow-criminals bawled loudly in response, tying "one green, three white, two blue" automatically. There are already hereditary criminals in these modern, comfortable jails, and the jail caste is fast becoming a definite order.
