"Another rare privilege-my first elephant ride. Yesterday the
Yuvaraja invited us to his summer palace to enjoy a ride on one of
his elephants, an enormous beast. I mounted a ladder provided to
climb aloft to the HOWDAH or saddle, which is silk-cushioned and
boxlike; and then for a rolling, tossing, swaying, and heaving down
into a gully, too much thrilled to worry or exclaim, but hanging
on for dear life!"
Southern India, rich with historical and archaeological remains,
is a land of definite and yet indefinable charm. To the north of
Mysore is the largest native state in India, Hyderabad, a picturesque
plateau cut by the mighty Godavari River. Broad fertile plains,
the lovely Nilgiris or "Blue Mountains," other regions with barren
hills of limestone or granite. Hyderabad history is a long, colorful
story, starting three thousand years ago under the Andhra kings,
and continuing under Hindu dynasties until A.D. 1294, when it passed
to a line of Moslem rulers who reign to this day.
The most breath-taking display of architecture, sculpture, and painting
in all India is found at Hyderabad in the ancient rock-sculptured
caves of Ellora and Ajanta. The Kailasa at Ellora, a huge monolithic
temple, possesses carved figures of gods, men, and beasts in the
stupendous proportions of a Michelangelo. Ajanta is the site of
five cathedrals and twenty-five monasteries, all rock excavations
maintained by tremendous frescoed pillars on which artists and
sculptors have immortalized their genius.
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