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Contingents of cavalry and infantry, supplies and transports were forwarded besides a camel corps from Bikanir, horses from many states, machine guns, hospital-bed contributions, motor cars and large gifts to the Patriotic and Belgian Relief Funds.
The expeditionary force contained units of the regular army and contingents of the Imperial Service Troops in India, From twelve states the viceroy accepted contingents of cavalry, infantry, sappers and transport, besides a camel corps from Bikanir. The Maharajah of Mysore placed $1,600,000 at the disposal of the Government in connection with the expenditure for the expeditionary force.
The Maharajah of Jaipur and Maharajah Scindia felt themselves constrained just about a year ago to enact vigorous measures on their own account against sedition and against the importation into their States of seditious literature which was still allowed to circulate with impunity in British India, whilst the State of Bikanir was the first to introduce an Explosive Substances Act immediately after the epidemic of bomb-throwing had broken out in Bengal.
Next holidays he was out with Mahbub, and here, by the way, he nearly died of thirst, plodding through the sand on a camel to the mysterious city of Bikanir, where the wells are four hundred feet deep, and lined throughout with camel-bone.
This man, who was a good soldier and a faithful follower of the minister, was a converted Hindu, of the Rathur tribe; a native of the Bikanir country bordering on Rajputana Proper to the south, and to the north on Hariana and other states immediately surrounding the metropolis.
The Nizam of Hyderabad and the Maharajah of Bikanir offered not only their troops, but the entire resources of their great states and their own personal services at the front. Practically all the 700 native rulers of states in India offered personal services, men and money.
These included the veteran Sir Pertab Singh, regent of Jodhpur; Sir Ganga Bahadur, Maharajah of Bikanir, and Sir Bhupindra Singh, Maharajah of Patiala.
India had thrilled with pride when, at Lord Hardinge's instance, her troops were first sent, not to act as merely subsidiary forces in subsidiary war-areas, but to share with British troops the very forefront of the battle in France, and she thrilled again when an Indian prince, the Maharajah of Bikanir, and Sir Satyendra Sinha, who was once more playing a conspicuous part in the political arena, and had been one of the oldest and ablest members of the moderate Congress party, were sent to represent India at the first Imperial War Conference in London, and took their seats side by side with British Ministers and with the Ministers of the self-governing Dominions.
It wasn't my first visit to a reigning prince, for if you travel much in India you're bound to come in contact with numbers of them; so I naturally formed a mental picture of what was in store for us, made up from a mixture of memories of Gwalior, Baroda, Bikanir, Hyderabad, Poona and Baghdad of the Arabian-Nights.
Tess sent the gardener running for a basket to put flowers in, and when she turned her head again Yasmini had stepped out through the window shrouded from head to heels in a camel-hair robe such as the Bikanir Desert men wear at night. The lower part of her face was hooded in it. Provided you wear a turban you can wear anything else you like in India without looking incongruous.
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