Today was 41º, and we spent it being mad dogs. The fort at Jodhpur has never been taken. Not surprising. It’s also a palace. At one gate, there are 31 plaster hand prints of the wives of one (over sexed?) maharajah: this was their last act before committing ‘sati’ on his funeral pyre. That at least the British put a stop to. Also, the Jaswant Thanda (Memory) a mausoleum, the clock tower and Sardar Market, and the Umaid gardens and museum. This last really does deserve a mention: there cannot be a more seedy collection in the entire continent. The most wonderful is the Natural History Room. Case 1: things in formaldehyde, including a tiny scorpion with two stings and a mouldy starfish. Case 2: a hysterical collection of Victorian stuffed birds, some upside down, two with caved-in heads and all covered in 80 years of dust. Definitely an ex-parakeet. Case 4: a stuffed crocodile with half its teeth removed. Case 3: la pièce de résistance. Two fighting tigers, complete with scars, leaking stuffing and a musty patina. More damage had been done by moths than was ever sustained in life. The market was only a few notches up on the threat scale from the Jami Masjid (see 13th) and it was marginally more affluent. Life Africa, the flip-flops-from-radials cobblers and oil can makers, and fabrics which are rapidly destined to become rags. No white people, and a goodly supply of beggars, stench and poverty. They seemed, however, to be largely Hindu, and it’s clear that Muslims are a notch below. At the mosque, men sold/gave water from pig-shaped animal skins, quack medicine men sold dried lizards, pickled insects, ground up spices and other unmentionable substances, and seemed to be administering ‘treatment’ two feet away from an open sewer. The food stalls were uniformly greasy black-pots, fires, walls, tents, seats, dishes and servers. Bizarrely, alongside the worst of these, was a stall selling suitcases and fluorescent wallclocks. A large enamelled sign - in English - pleaded with all who braved the kilometre gauntlet of the market to condemn the authorised massacres of Muslims by Hindu police in the North of the country, recounting in some detail the atrocities and names of the perpetrators. For sure, few present on that day could have read its message. We had to wait half an hour for prayers to end, and believe, me, time hung heavily. We were the centre of unrelieved attention, but, for India, oddly silent. Frequently, nay, ad nauseum, children and adults crowd round, gently fingering a white arm or hi-tech fabric culotte, saying ‘What is your name?’ ‘What country?’ ‘Can I have a biro/two rupees/a photo/your sunglasses?’ ‘Do you want to sell your watch/camera/wife??’ (Actually, that isn’t true. I can’t be marketable). It’s horrendous. But the Muslims just looked. Unsmiling and almost incurious, but then, in their condition, they probably have little about which to smile, and no energy to waste on curiosity when it doesn’t relate to survival. Actually, the best crowds gather when there’s a little fracas, as in Jaipur (see 15th). Hanging above their heads is a big comic balloon saying ‘Scrap! Scrap!’ in adolescent boys’ voices. I think there is an insight there. More anon. Late to bed, having spent several hours with Steve Davies, a Kiwi behavioural ecologist who watches monkeys.