"It would take me twenty volumes to relate that journey. I went through wonderfully magnificent regions, was received by strangely handsome princes, and was entertained with incredible magnificence. For two months it seemed to me as if I were walking in a poem, that I was going about in a fairy kingdom, on the back of imaginary elephants. In the midst of wild forests I discovered extraordinary ruins, delicate and chiseled like jewels, fine as lace and enormous as mountains, those fabulous, divine monuments which are so graceful that one falls in love with their form as with a woman, feeling a physical and sensual pleasure in looking at them. As Victor Hugo says, 'Whilst wide-awake, I was walking in a dream.'
"Toward the end of my journey I reached Ganhara, which was formerly one of the most prosperous towns in Central India, but is now much decayed. It is governed by a wealthy, arbitrary, violent, generous, and cruel prince. His name is Rajah Maddan, a true Oriental potentate, delicate and barbarous, affable and sanguinary, combining feminine grace with pitiless ferocity.
"The city lies at the bottom of a valley, on the banks of a little lake surrounded by pagodas, which bathe their walls in the water. At a distance the city looks like a white spot, which grows larger as one approaches it, and by degrees you discover the domes and spires, the slender and graceful summits of Indian monuments.
"At about an hour's distance from the gates, I met a superbly caparisoned elephant, surrounded by a guard of honour which the sovereign had sent me, and I was conducted to the palace with great ceremony.
"I should have liked to have taken the time to put on my gala uniform, but royal impatience would not permit me to do it. He was anxious to make my acquaintance, to know what he might expect from me.
"I was ushered into a great hall surrounded by galleries, in the midst of bronze-coloured soldiers in splendid uniforms, while all about were standing men dressed in striking robes, studded with precious stones.
"On a bench like our garden benches, without a back; I saw a shining mass, a kind of setting sun reposing; it was the rajah who was waiting for me, motionless, in a robe of the purest canary colour. He had some ten or fifteen million francs' worth of diamonds on him, and by itself, on his forehead, glistened the famous star of Delhi, which has always belonged to the illustrious dynasty of the Pariharas of Mundore, from whom my host was descended.