The royal palace lies at the extremity of the third part of the town, and forms a town within a town, or rather a fortress in a fortress, as it is surrounded by immense fortified walls, which command the town as well as the country round it; many large and small buildings are enclosed within these walls, but do not present anything remarkable beyond their handsome halls.  Had the resident been in Kottah I should have been presented to the king, but as it was not etiquette in his absence, I was compelled to put up with my disappointment.

From the town we proceeded to Armornevas, one of the neighbouring palaces of the king’s.  The road to it was indescribably bad, full of rocks and large stones.  I was astonished to see with what dexterity our elephant set his plump feet between them, and travelled on as quickly as if he was going over the levellest road.

When I expressed my surprise to Dr. Rolland that the king should not have a good road made to his residence, which he so often visited, he informed me that it was a maxim with all Indian monarchs not to make roads, for, according to their opinion, in case of a war, they offered too great facilities to the invasion of the enemy.

The castle is small and unimportant.  It lies on the river Chumbal, which has here hollowed out for itself a remarkably deep bed in the rock.  Picturesque ravines and groups of rock form its shores.

The garden of the castle is so thickly planted with orange, citron, and other trees, that there is not room for even the smallest flowering plant or shrub.

The few flowers which the Indian gardens contain, are placed at the entrances.  The paths are raised two feet, as the ground is always muddy and damp in consequence of the frequent watering.  Most of the Indian gardens which I afterwards saw resembled these.

The king frequently amuses himself here with tiger-hunting.  Somewhat higher up the river small towers are erected upon slight eminences; the tigers are driven gradually towards the water, and always more and more hemmed in, until they are within shot of the towers; the king and his friends sit securely upon the tops of the towers, and fire bravely upon the wild beasts.

Near the castle was a small wooden temple, which had just been built; the principal part, however, the amiable idols, was awanting.  It was owing to this fortunate circumstance that we were allowed to enter the sanctuary, which consisted of a small marble kiosk standing in the centre of the hall.  The temple and the columns were covered with bad paintings in the most brilliant colours.  It is strange that neither the Hindoos nor the Mahometans should have applied themselves to painting, for there are neither good pictures nor drawings to be seen among any of these people, although they have displayed such proficiency in architecture, carving in relief, and in mosaic work.

We lastly visited a remarkably fine wood of tamarind and mango trees, under the shadows of which the ashes of a number of kings are preserved in handsome monuments.  These monuments consist of open temples, with broad flights of ten or twelve steps leading up to them.  At the bottom of the steps, on each side, stand stone figures of elephants.  Some of the temples are ornamented with beautiful sculptures.