Of the legends of Rajasthan

The citadel of Komulmer (Kumbhalgarh)

It is only in the cold season that the mirage is visible; the sojourners of Maroo call it see-kote or ‘castles in the air.’

In the deep desert to the westward, the herdsmen and travellers through the regions style it chittram, ‘the picture’; while about the plains of the Chumbul and Jumna they term it dessasur, ‘the omen of the quarter.’…

Let the reader fancy himself in the midst of a desert plain, with nothing to impede his scope of vision, his horizon bounded by a lofty black wall encompassing him on all sides.

Let him watch the first sunbeam break upon this barrier, and at once, as by a touch of magic, shiver it into a thousand fantastic forms, leaving a splintered pinnacle in one place, a tower in another, an arch in a third; these in turn undergoing more than kaleidoscopic changes, until the “fairy fabric” vanishes.

Here it was emphatically called Hurchund Raja ca poori or ‘the city of Raja Hurchund,’ a celebrated prince of the brazen age of India.

Lt. Col. James Tod