MOUNT ABU AND AJMER journey onward from Ahmedabad will lead us as its next natural stopping-place to the isolated peak of Mount Abu, " the Saints' Pinnacle," the Rajpoot Olympus. The traveller who, after traversing the richly cultivated plain of Gujarat, mounts that lofty ridge will understand the influence which the physical features and situation of the country spreading out before him have exercised on the races who have lived on it. They are strongly marked. A little to the east of Mount Abu mences the chain of the Arvalis, or " mountains of strength," which stretch away in bold ridges towards Delhi, which has been, and always will be, the capital of India. Running north and south, they form the backbone of Upper India, and on the west lie the arid plains and ever shifting hills of Manvar, Jesselmer, and Bikaner ; on the east are the forests and plains of black loam furrowed by running streams, of Mewar Bundi, Kotah, Ajmer, and Jeypore. The vast and varied region which extends from the frontier of Sind on the west to the fort of Agra on the east, and from the sandy tracts of the Sutlej on the north to the Vindhva range separating it from the Deccan or " South," is known by the collective and classical denomination Rajast'han, " the abode of princes." " In the familiar dialect of these countries," says Tod, who has done for Rajpootana what the great Wizard of the North has done for Scotland, " it is termed Rajwarra, by the more refined Raet'hana, corrupted to Rajpootana, the common designation among the British to denote the Rajpoot principalities." Nature meant it to be the abode of chiefs. Tod, in his Annals and Antiquities of Rajasehan, the true Rajpoot epic alike in the vastness of its scope and in the completeness of its execution, has by pen and pencil revealed the beauty and variety of the land where the age of chivalry has not fled. Tod guides us through the Marcosi'hulli, or region of death (the emphatic and figurative name for the desert), to Bikaner, J odpoor, and Jesselmer and the fair valley of Oodipoor. He conducts us on the east of the range through the Patar (table, pat, mountain, ar), or great Plateau of Central India watered by the Chumbul, the paramount lord of the floods and many a noble stream. " The surface of this extensive plateau," he tells us, " is greatly diversified." There are great rolling waves of country where the protruding rocks present not a trace of vegetation ; there are, besides, tracts yellow in harvest-time with ripened wheat and dotted with the roofs of a hardy and valiant yeomanry. There are ranges of rugged hills, while below them spread valleys with low meads, abundantly watered with numerous rills, and cultivation " raised with infinite labour on terraces, as the vine is cultivated in Switzer land and on the Rhine." There are beetling cliffs overhanging
the rippling streams, crowned with the fortress-homes of the proud Rajpoot chiefs who claim their descent from the sun or from the moon, and whose ancestors have for ages exercised sovereign power. Every petty Rajpoot chief, and every member of his family or clan, believes with the in tensity of an undoubting faith that he is of an ancient, illustrious, and royal descent. Tod tells us that each race has " its genealogical tree, describing the essential peculi arities, religious tenets, and pristine locale of the clan " that every Rajpoot should be able to repeat this creed, and that in point of fact there is scarcely a chief of character for knowledge who cannot repeat the genealogy of his line," though in these degenerate days many are satisfied with referring to the family bard or chronicler. These genealogi cal tables are " the touchstone of affinities, and guardians of the laws of intermarriage." Caste has ever prevented the inferior class of society from being incorporated with this haughty noblesse. Only those of pure blood in both lines can hold fiefs of the crown. The highest may marry the daughter of a Rajpoot, whose sole possession is " a skin of land " ; the sovereign himself is not degraded by such alliance. It is his blood, and not the number of his acres, which ennobles the Rajpoot. He does not derive his title from the land, but he gives his name to the land. The State takes the name of the capital which is the residence and strong hold of the chief, and the capital takes the name of the chief who founded it. The Rajpoot considers there are two professions fit for a man—to conquer and to govern. " The poorest Rajpoot of this day retains all the pride of ancestry, often his sole inheritance ; he scorns to hold the plough or to use his lance but on horseback." When a Raj poot chief was unable to provide for a younger son he gave him a horse and a lance, and the lad with some companions went forth to serve some sovereign or to found a state. He had learnt in his father's desert home or mountain eyrie the business of war and the craft of government. Thus the Rajpoot spread over the continent of India and influenced its history. It is the desert and the mountain which have influenced the historical process and feudal constitution of Rajpootana, and has enabled the Rajpoot to maintain to this day those social and religious institutions which make Rajpootana one of the most interesting and romantic spots in the continent of India.