File:Indika. The country and the people of India and Ceylon (1891) (14583571689).jpg

Identifier: indikacountrypeo00hursuoft (find matches)
Title: Indika. The country and the people of India and Ceylon
Year: 1891 (1890s)
Authors: Hurst, J. F. (John Fletcher), 1834-1903
Subjects: Sri Lanka India
Publisher: New York, Harper
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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nooks forconversation and retirement. Some of the larger halls andchambers were in process of new decoration. In India much of the work of embellishing, and even of tin-more solid decoration in stone, is done by artists who come tothe house, anddo not laborin the distantw orks h ops.The marble-cut-ters, instead offinishing theirobjects awayfrom the house,do it on the spotwhere they areto be used. Itis no short task,therefore,! o puta native housein order in In-dia. Woodand stone arebrought to theplace in the rough, and the workmen carry out their plans under the eye of theowner of the house. In this rajahs house was all the litter of ;igreal Florentine marble workshop, and yet the finished roomswere kept as clean and neat as though no chip had ever fallenfrom a block of stone. Here was work going on in line mosaic,the artists, no doubt, having come from Agra for the specialpurpose. Then for the other kinds of stone-work there wereworkmen who had probably come from Italy on the special
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SPINNING. 340 INDIRA. errand, and would only return after many months, or evenyears, when the contract should be completed. There weremany servants and overseers, some of them clad in picturesqueOriental costume. The grandson of the rajah, a courtly young gentleman, con-versed with us a few minutes, and then withdrew. The intel-ligent attendant who had received us at first was in no haste,but gave us ample time to examine this immense building, withall its appointments, and the surrounding grounds. On leavingthe place, with its quiet and splendor, and entering again thebusy native street, it seemed as though I had been in a differentland, so near are the old and the new in India. One thing astonished me—the apparent modesty of thewealthy native. If he had an ostentatious spirit, it was hardto detect it. He said nothing in praise of his rare birds, or finemosaics, vast halls, or the immense boa-constrictors, which windabout or sleep in the meadow behind the close wire fence. Hesimply

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