284 AROUND THE WORLD VIA INDIA. 



he visits them in their huts. He visits the markets to 

 learn what the country produces, and he ascertains the 

 prices of foodstuffs. He studies the habits and customs 

 of the people, their clothing, their implements of agri- 

 culture and war and the tools of the artisans. He looks 

 into the little shops and finds out what the people buy 

 and sell. He makes a study of the trees, flowers and 

 animals, domestic and wild. He frequents the botanic 

 and zoologic gardens and museums. He takes special 

 interest in the landmarks of history, ancient and mod- 

 ern, and the educational advantages and religious be- 

 liefs of the natives of the country he visits. With such 

 objects in view, there is no country in the world that 

 offers a wider field and a richer material than India. 

 As I have indicated before, travel out of season in a 

 tropic country offers advantages as well as disadvan- 

 tages. Crowding on shipboard, in railway carriages and 

 in hotels is avoided. There were only twenty first-class 

 passengers on the voyage from Adelaide to Colombo, 

 four from Colombo to Tuticurin and less than fifty from 

 Bombay to Marseilles. At Madras, besides myself, there 

 was only one guest in the Connemara Hotel; at Calcutta, 

 in the Great Western Hotel, not more than ten; at 

 Benares I had the Hotel de Paris to myself, so at Agra 

 the Metropole, and at Delhi the Laurie Hotel, and at 

 Jaipur, in the Eastum Family Hotel, besides myself, 

 there was the Parsee woman doctor who will be referred 

 to again further on. At Bombay, the magnificent hotel 

 Taj Mahal, with 600 rooms, had less than sixty guests 

 at the time of my visit. The Indian railways provide 

 well for the first-class passengers. The first-class com- 

 partments have six sitting and four lying-down places, 

 lavatory and a connecting small compartment for serv- 

 ants. Towels and bedding are carried by the pas- 

 sengers. During the six nights I spent on the train 

 I shared such a convenient compartment only once with 

 a fellow traveler, and during the day I was very seldom 

 disturbed by additional passengers. I was never obliged 



