THE ATTRACTION OF NOVELTY 81 



But somehow or other in India the human frame 

 seems to stand it. 



The prospect of a very long journey by train 

 from Calcutta to Madras, and on, filled me with 

 some apprehension, but I am always greatly 

 helped by traversing new country. Anything 

 new carries me along in the most extraordinary 

 way, and I seem to forget boredom and fatigue 

 and all the discomforts incidental to long days 

 and nights in the train. It was the same thing 

 in London. Often have I thoroughly enjoyed a 

 hot, stuffy day in August (when I have been kept 

 in town) simply because I took a long walk in some 

 unknown slum where even the dirty children 

 presented novel features. So it is out here. 

 I suppose it is a matter of temperament, but no 

 one knows how greatly this has helped me in 

 India. Flies, dust, squalor, or discomfort, there 

 is an element of delight in all so long as the flies 

 are fresh flies, the dust is new dust, the squalor is 

 unexplored, and the discomfort novel. 



I was intensely pleased with Southern India. 

 The railway traverses most lovely country, green, 

 well-wooded and well- watered at least, so it 

 was when I went there; and the landscape is 

 diversified by hills of considerable beauty and 

 some height, which is a great relief after the usual 

 flat plains of India. The whole country seemed 

 tidy, well cared for, and pleasanter-looking than 

 the middle and North of India. In Madras the 

 men wear their hair tied in a knot falling on the 

 nape of the neck, and as many of them wear 

 spectacles and flowing garments, they would pass 

 muster for unlovely suffragettes. 



