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You are up on a steep hill three hundred feet above the old town of Gwalior, within the walled enclosure of an ancient fort. According to local tradition, there has been some sort of stronghold up here for nearly seventeen hundred years.

This place was built about 1486 by a famous old Indian monarch who was not only a great fighter but a lover of fine art. Good judges say this is one of the finest specimens of Hindu domestic architecture in all India. In order to see it you have to obtain a special permit from the representative of His Highness the present Maharajah Sindhia of Gwalior to whom it belongs--his soldiers guard the old palace as they do everything within the fort. (The Maharajah's residence is not here, but in a more modern marble palace down below in the town.)

Have you noticed that there are only two suggestions of windows in all these massive walls and towers of yellowish stone at the left? Yet those big spaces of masonry are so admirably divided and proportioned by the architect's judgment that the effect is marvelously good. See how simple and yet how beautiful are those bands of sculptured ornament. A considerable part of the wall is covered with tiles in colored enamel, as perfect as when they were put in place centuries ago, and produced by some process now unknown to any man alive.

Notice the dignified mediaeval getaway. When Prince Karageorgeovitch was here he saw a Hindu cow, held sacred according to the ancient faith of the people here, stroll in through the gate, her head decked with a tiara of peacock's feathers. Lady Dufferin came up here once and wrote of her own visit.

(See Karageorgeovitch's "Enchanted India," Lady Dufferin's "Our Viceregal Life in India," also Fergusson's "Indian Architecture.") 

From Notes of Travel, No. 9, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood.

Celebrated Man Singh Palace, Gwalior, India.
 
Le célèbre palais Man Singh, Gwalior, Inde. 

Der berühmte Man Singh Balaft, Gwalior, Indien.

Celebre Palacio "Men Singh" Gwalior, India.

Знаменитый дворецъ, Манъ Сивгъ, Гдаліоръ, Индія.