246 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



Ramsay was by this time due elsewhere and could not 

 wait for the last part of the ceremony. It may be 

 interesting to add that in Calcutta they were again 

 wedding guests, this time at a Brahma-Somaj marriage, 

 where the service, though in a language they could not 

 follow, appeared not unlike the Anglican form. 



The time in Bombay had been very fully occupied, 

 and here a letter of Ramsay to Dr. Travers, dated 

 llth December, may be quoted : 



" We are in India ! The exclamation mark is to express the 

 absolute petrifaction and astonishment we both have at every 

 thing we see and smell. It is simply overwhelming. People of 

 all colours, from nigger black to pure white : dressed in all 

 sorts of clothes, from none at all save smiles and a nose ring to 

 the most elaborate turbans, white overalls, and jewels of rare 

 lustre, through all shades of white, yellow, orange, greens, blues, 

 lilacs and purples. No browns or sad colours. It is a spectacle 

 that would make a colour-blind man curse his misfortune. The 

 oddest groups : a woman with a naked child straddling her 

 sideways, a scuddy (if you don't know what that is, ask Donnan) 

 of the male persuasion holding her hand, talking to an old gentle- 

 man of the Mr. Swan type, with spectacles and a white turban 

 with a scarlet thread twisted in it, and bare legs, sitting on his 

 hams writing a letter for the lady. Two chaps with ' nozzings ' 

 on except a waist cloth and even exceptionally naked heads, 

 caused by an early and persistent use of the razor ; that's the 

 kind of group that meets you everywhere. Old, old women, 

 wrinkled and white-haired, with the remains of good looks about 

 them, with the usual scanty garments, a saree, or gauzy shawl, 

 and a short petticoat. Fat, prosperous-looking oily Hindoos, 

 with white turbans and white blouses and trousers ; Parsees 

 with black bishop's mitres and European dress ; in fact, one 



