BACK TO CIVILIZATION 
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traveler wore a look of perpetual anxiety lest he 
should fail to get hotel or railway accommodations. 
The India of one’s imagination—the somber land 
of mystery, of untold riches, of eastern enchant¬ 
ment, of far-away romance—was gone, buried un¬ 
der picture post-cards, hustling tourists, and all the 
commonplaces of a popular tourist track. It was 
distinctly disappointing from one point of view, 
and yet, I suppose, one should rejoice that his fel¬ 
low countrymen have cash and energy enough to 
Tourists in India 
travel in distant places, even though they destroy 
the romantic charm of those places by so doing. 
The rush of Americans through India was as 
brisk as was the rush of Americans through Eu¬ 
rope ten years ago. Age was no handicap. There 
were old couples, sixty, seventy, and eighty years 
old, jogging along as eagerly and excitedly as 
young bridal couples. The conversation one en¬ 
countered was always pretty much the same—how 
such a train was crowded, how accommodations 
could not be secured at such a hotel, how poor the 
hotels were, and how long they would have to wait 
to get a berth on some outgoing ship. There were 
