39 8 A Sportswoman in India 



The Apollo Bunder landing-stage is reached at last. 

 I recognise my luggage. We are on a small steamer 

 paddling energetically across the bay out to the ocean 

 liner. I shall never see India again ! 



No more white kunka roads with dilapidated ekkas 

 and bony tats jingling past, nor great, comfortable, 

 white oxen with painted horns and blue-and-white 

 cowrie necklaces lying unyoked in the shade of their 

 carts patiently chewing the cud ; no more khaki- 

 clad Tommies, nor parade maidans with trim rows of 

 barracks among avenues of tamarisk- and babul-trees ; 

 no more naked, black-eyed children of large stomachs, 

 nor low mud villages with hideous buffaloes wallowing 

 in marshy swamps. 



The cool, marble mosques and palaces, bleaching in 

 a glowing haze, the bungalows with their dark, high 

 rooms, and noiseless servants gliding barefoot, the 

 sleepy, complaining sound of the rhythmical creaking 

 of the water-wheel in a corner of the compound, 

 resolve themselves into a memory. 



But, dearer than all recollections, the Himalayas 

 insist most strongly, 



Spirit of Nature ! here ! 

 In this interminable wilderness 

 Of worlds, at whose immensity 

 Even soaring Fancy staggers. . . . 

 Spirit of Nature ! Thou, 

 Imperishable as this scene, 

 Here is thy fitting temple. 



We forget relations and friends perhaps even our 



