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Bihâri Mal was a prince of the small Rajput state Ambir, and possessed sufficient political comprehension to understand after Akbar's first great successes that his own insignificant power and the nearness of Delhi made it advisable to voluntarily recognize the Emperor as his liege lord. Therefore he came with son, grandson and retainers to swear allegiance to Akbar.
You make application through a deputy, usually the man-servant traveling with you, and an hour later comes formal notification that His Highness welcomes you to his capital, and that a state carriage will be sent for your use, as well as a state elephant to carry you up the hills to Ambir.
When blue-rock pigeons descend by thousands in the market-place to profit by an over-turned sack of grain, visitors marvel at their irridescent necks and breasts but a beauteous peacock appearing on the scene attracts an admiration amounting to monopoly. But the appointment with the state elephant what of that? Surely, Ambir must be seen.
Five magnificent tuskers, that promptly obey their keeper's command, are used by His Highness for tiger-hunting; and a bevy of complaisant elephants, quartered in a single stable, have grown old in carrying tourists up the Ambir hills, it is explained.
This explains why Ambir is now deserted, and why a court steeped in medievalism has a setting bristling with newness. Every adjunct of a fortified residence is there in the hills. Miles of battlemented masonry, pierced every few feet for bowmen, surrounds the straggling mass of buildings.
At his hotel a visitor learns that a formal request must be made for permission to inspect the Maharajah's palace and stables, and to go to the abandoned capital of the state, Ambir, five miles away.
At the table Sir Modava passed around some photographs of the place, including the palace of the Maharajah, the Golden Kiosk, and the temples of the valley of Ambir. It was impossible to visit all the wonderful structures on the road without spending at least a year in the country; and a dozen volumes would hardly contain the description of them.
A person with a fondness for simplicity, or possessing scruples against kingly institutions, may escape the state carriage by despatching a firm and prompt declination of the honor. But the chaprassis remain; and the elephant, already trudging to the base of the Ambir hills to await your coming, cannot be countermanded or headed off.
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