The young reporter on the road
A move up: in November 1887 Kipling left the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore for its bigger sister paper, the Pioneer in Allahabad.
The assignment: he toured Rajputana and sent back a long run of travel letters, written in the third person about a traveller he calls the Englishman.
- Born
- Bombay, December 1865
- New job
- The Pioneer, Allahabad, from November 1887
- The series
- Letters of Marque, on the Rajput states
- Bundi letters
- Printed in the Pioneer in February 1888
- The route: the series takes in Jaipur, Amber, Udaipur, Chittor, Jodhpur and Bundi, among others. Our Rajasthan travel guide maps the same kingdoms today.
- The title: a letter of marque was a licence allowing a private ship to raid enemy shipping. Kipling liked the idea of a freelance licensed to roam.
- The books: the letters were later gathered as Letters of Marque, and later still in the first volume of From Sea to Sea, which is how most people read them now.
- His guidebook: he carried, and quoted, James Tod's Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, and he ends the Bundi letters by telling readers to go and read Tod.
Arriving at the Bundi gate
No hotel: Bundi had no rest house for travellers, and almost no English visitors. The guard sent him off through the town to a lakeside pavilion.
The permit: a one-eyed clerk checked his purwana, the written pass that let a stranger travel in a princely state, and quizzed him closely about his work.
- Not an official: the clerk relaxed once he was satisfied the visitor had nothing to do with the government. Kipling clearly enjoyed being taken for a nobody.
- His servant: his own man, Ram Baksh, grumbles through the letters: no grass for the horses, strange coins, a dialect he could not follow.
- The joke on himself: Kipling ends up embarrassed by his own demands for eggs, firewood and water, and admits Bundi does not encourage Englishmen. It is one of his more honest moments.
A night at the Sukh Mahal
Two turrets and a colonnade: he describes a pavilion on a lake, open to the wind and the pigeons, which he made habitable by tying canvas tent-flies around the pillars.
The caretaker's story: a white-bearded chowkidar, the watchman, flattered him grandly and told tall stories about earlier British guests.
- Built
- Early eighteenth century
- Setting
- The bank of Jait Sagar, north of town
- Best hour
- Sunset, with egrets in the shallows
- Season for lotus
- After the monsoon
- Two sepoys on guard: he was given a guard with old muskets, who warned him about tigers in the hills.
- The tiger dream: that night he dreamed a one-eyed tiger walked into his tent without a permit. The noise was a wild cat.
- Dawn on the water: he describes the lake turning from black to grey to red, and the palace drum sounding across the valley as the gates opened.
- Today: the pavilion is modest and quiet, and the lake at sunset, with the hills turning blue, is still the best reason to come. Our Bundi guide describes it.
The lazy city he fell for
A town in a gorge: he saw Bundi as a V-shaped valley packed with houses, its streets straight and cool, with gardens and watercourses between them.
Old stones reused: he noticed ruins built into newer walls, and houses leaning dangerously, with no municipality to pull them down.
- The dispensary: he visited the charitable hospital, where a doctor trained in Lahore treated asthma, pneumonia and, memorably, tiger bites.
- The free school: he watched children learning English and Hindustani, seated according to caste and family trade, an observation more pointed than he admits.
- The lakes: he names the Nawal Sagar in the town, and fished in the big lake with two guards while they told him ghost stories.
- His verdict: a beautifully lazy city. Our grandmother, who called Bundi the town that time forgot to wake, would have agreed with him.
- Today: the Bundi things to do guide lists the lanes, stepwells and lakes worth an unhurried morning.
Up through the Garh Palace, gate by gate
The first gate and the chowk
- A steep stone ramp: he climbed a paved slope to a gate he says was painted with fish, into a courtyard cut from a spur of the hill.
- The drums: facing the gate was the guardroom with the great state nakkaras, kettle drums, and one was beaten as he arrived.
The treasury
- A broken beehive: clerks wrote in huge account books on a shaded veranda while petitioners, grooms and villagers crowded the stairs.
- No change: the treasurer could not change his banknote, and promised him silver next time. It is one of the funniest scenes in the series.
Hathi Pol, the elephant gate
- Two stone elephants: the second gate, with its carved elephants, led him into a quieter court of stables and sleeping grooms.
- Still there: Hathi Pol is the gate every visitor passes today, and the elephants still frame the view.
Ratan Daulat and the Chhatra Mahal
The empty throne: in the Ratan Daulat, the audience hall, he saw a white marble throne that guards would not let anyone pass in front of.
- Chhatra Mahal: he describes the hall built by Rao Chhatrasal, who died fighting in the reign of Shah Jahan, with a marble pool and painted roofs.
- The swinging instrument: a brass astrological instrument hung on a tripod and rang in the wind, startling him.
The garden at the top
- A hanging garden: high up he found a garden with a goldfish tank and a low parapet over a sheer drop.
- Painters at work: artists were repainting panels, with older murals of fighting elephants showing beneath. Bundi painting was a living craft, not a relic.
Such a palace as men build in uneasy dreams
Kipling wrote that the palace of Bundi, even in broad daylight, is 'such a palace as men build for themselves in uneasy dreams', more the work of goblins than of men. Stand in a dark stairway, then step out onto a sunlit painted terrace with the valley falling away below, and you will feel exactly what he meant.
- The palace
- Built over generations from the seventeenth century
- Chitrashala
- Murals made for Rao Umed Singh, mid-eighteenth century
- Taragarh
- Tradition dates it to 1354
- Light
- Early morning for the terraces
- Being watched: he felt eyes everywhere, through veiled windows, trapdoors and peepholes, more strongly than at Jodhpur.
- A woman singing: as he left, a woman's song rose from deep inside the palace, echoing like a voice in a cave.
- Only a fraction: from across the valley he realised he had seen a tiny part of the palace, which covers acres of hillside.
- Taragarh above: he looked up from the garden at the decaying walls of the star fort and repeated the story of tunnels running up to it. See our Taragarh guide.
What he missed, and what he got wrong
The Chitrashala: he does not describe the great painted gallery of Rao Umed Singh, the finest murals in Bundi. Perhaps he never reached it. Read our piece on Bundi's murals.
The stepwells: his Bundi letters do not mention Raniji ki Baori, the carved stepwell built in 1699, which is now the town's most loved sight. See Raniji ki Baori.
- The tone: he can be funny and generous, then suddenly dismissive of people, art and belief. Read him as a witness of his time, not a judge of ours.
- The ruler: the letters name Maharao Raja Ram Singh, whom Tod had installed as a boy in 1821. By 1887 his long reign was itself part of Bundi's character.
- The ghost of empire: he leaves Bundi for Deoli and finds the cantonment almost empty, its cemetery the best-kept place in town. It is the saddest image in the series.
Did he begin Kim in Bundi?
What is known: Kipling visited Bundi in 1887 and wrote about it in his travel letters. That much is in print.
- What is claimed: local tradition says he started Kim during his stay. Kim was published much later, in 1901, and its world is the Punjab and the north.
- How we tell it: as a local story, with a smile, never as history. Guides who insist on it usually mean it kindly.
- What matters more: the Bundi letters themselves, which are vivid, rude, funny and full of things you can still see.
Walking Kipling's Bundi today
Dawn: Taragarh and the palace
- Taragarh first: climb to the star fort at first light, when the valley is misty and the monkeys sleepy.
- Down through the palace: enter by Hathi Pol, find the Ratan Daulat and the Chhatra Mahal, then reach the Chitrashala he missed.
Morning: the lanes and the lakes
- Through the town: walk down to Nawal Sagar and its half-submerged temple, then on through the blue lanes to Raniji ki Baori.
- Breakfast: hot kachori from a busy stall, eaten standing up, as Bundi does.
Afternoon: out of town
- Chhatris and wells: the cenotaph of eighty-four pillars and the great Dabhai Kund stepwell.
- Kshar Bagh: the royal cenotaphs in their quiet garden.
Sunset: the Sukh Mahal
- Kipling's view: end at the Sukh Mahal on Jait Sagar as the light goes, and read his tiger dream aloud.
- Dinner: a thali on a haveli roof, with the palace floodlit on the hill.
What has changed since 1887, and what hasn't
Unchanged: the palace on the hill, the paved climb, the elephant gate, the lakes and the sense of a town in a fold of hills with one way in.
Changed: the kingdom joined Rajasthan in 1948, the treasury crowd is gone, and travellers now stay in family havelis rather than draughty pavilions.
- Fragile: parts of the palace are damaged and closed, and the old lanes are under pressure from traffic and new building. Visit gently.
- Still painted: miniature painters still work in Bundi, and some welcome visitors. Our miniature painting page explains the style.
- Still festive: Kajli Teej in the monsoon and the Bundi Utsav in Kartik fill the town. We confirm dates each year.
Kipling's Rajputana beyond Bundi
Jaipur: the series opens here, with the young reporter wandering the wide, planned streets of the walled city and its bazaars. Our Jaipur guide walks the same lanes.
Amber: he went up to the old Kachwaha palace above Maota lake, the capital before Jaipur was built. See Amber Fort.
- Chittor: the ruined fort of the Sisodias, with its towers, tanks and memories of jauhar, drew some of his most haunting pages. Read our Chittorgarh Fort guide.
- Udaipur: he saw the City Palace rising above Lake Pichola and the island palaces on the water. Our Udaipur guide covers them.
- Jodhpur: he called its fort on the red rock the work of giants, the line that sits beside his goblins in Bundi. See Mehrangarh.
- A Kipling journey: we can string these together on a private route, with the letters as your guidebook and a local historian in each city. Our forts and palaces grand tour is a natural starting point.
What to read before you come
Letters of Marque: the Bundi letters, read in order, take about an hour. Many free editions of From Sea to Sea include them.
James Tod: the Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, the book Kipling carried. Romantic and sometimes unreliable, but the source of countless Rajput stories.
- Our own background: the history of the Hadas in our Hadoti region page and our guide to the Rajput dynasties.
- For context: our short history of Rajasthan explains the treaties of 1818 that made princely states like Bundi what Kipling saw.
- On the palace: our guide to the palace and Chitrashala goes room by room.
Planning a Kipling stay in Bundi
Where to sleep: the town's charm is its family havelis below the palace, with painted rooms and roof terraces. Our guide to the heritage havelis of Bundi compares them.
When: October to March for walking weather. July to September for green hills and full lakes, if you don't mind rain.
- Best months
- October to March, monsoon for green hills
- From Jaipur
- About four hours by road
- Pairs with
- Ranthambore, Kota, Chittorgarh
- Stay
- A heritage haveli below the palace
- Combine it: Bundi sits well after tigers at Ranthambore, about three hours away, or with Kota and its own painted palace.
- Journeys: our offbeat Rajasthan journey links Bundi, Chittorgarh and Dungarpur, the quieter kingdoms Kipling would recognise.
- Pace: walk early and late, rest at midday. The palace climb is steep and has uneven steps, so wear good shoes.
Who will love a literary Bundi
Readers: anyone who likes travelling with a book in hand will enjoy matching his rooms and lakes to the ones in front of them.
- Repeat visitors: travellers who have seen Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaipur and want a quieter kingdom, as Kipling did.
- Families: older children love the tiger dream, the treasury that could not change a banknote and the elephant gate.
- Not for: those who want polish and big hotels. Bundi is simple, steep and a little dusty, which is exactly its charm.