CHAPTER X 



OOTACAMUND AND ANGLO-INDIAN LIFE 



Grey dusk behind the tamarisks the parrots fly together 



As the sun is sinking slowly over Home : 

 And his last ray seems to mock us, shackled in a lifelong tether 



That drags us back howe'er so far we roam. 

 Hard her service, poor her payment she in ancient tattered raiment 



India, she the grim stepmother of our kind. 

 If a year of life be lent her, if her temple's shrine we enter, 



The door is shut we may not look behind. 



RUDYARD KIPLING. 



THIS, I am afraid, is about to be a dull chapter. 

 I must ask my readers' kind patience while I 

 first of all describe Ootacamund, the finest hill station 

 in India ; then secondly, sketch briefly ordinary Indian 

 life down in the plains ; and conclude with a short 

 discussion upon the question why, in a country of such 

 natural wealth as India, the lower classes should have 

 lived for the last four thousand years in a state of 

 sheer ignorance and poverty. 



It is a far cry from Delhi to Ootacamund, and we 

 were five consecutive nights rattling down there in the 

 train, and four long, weary days. Fain would we 

 forget the hurried meals at the railway stations, either 

 all crammed into a few hours or else with gaps of 



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