THE INDIAN MILLIONS 



means, you realise that it is an actual fact that nearly 

 three hundred millions of people, nearly a quarter of the 

 population of the globe, are packed into the peninsula. 



The stations swarm with people, heave with people, 

 a struggling, turbaned, vociferous mass. A Bank 

 Holiday crowd in England is nothing to a normal 

 crowd there. They do not trouble you. You are a 

 sahib, and the guard would deal promptly with 

 anything coloured which attempted to invade your 

 compartment, but you see them and you wonder ; 

 wonder most of all at the marvellous organisation 

 which is able to control those millions. You cannot 

 help being prouder than ever of your British 

 nationality, of being kin to the men who, in a bare 

 hundred years, have brought order out of the chaos 

 of irresponsible native rule. 



From the train you get an endless panorama of 

 fields, villages and temples. The hideous " goporams " 

 of the Dravidian temples seem always in evidence, 

 whilst in every grove there appears to be an image of 

 some sort — an uncouth god squatting on his haunches, 

 an uncouth parody on a horse, or a wholly indescribable 

 satire on creation generally. Lean cattle and even 

 more lean goats, grotesque water-buffalo wallowing 

 in the mud ; the country is full of stock — of a kind. 

 But there is too much stock, just as there are too many 

 people. Nature never adequately provided for them, 

 and man has been unable to remedy the deficiences. 



255 



