368 
IN AFRICA 
many people hung up in Bombay and Calcutta 
vainly trying to get away, but the boats were 
booked full for two or more voyages ahead. 
One of the peculiarities of Indian travel has been 
the fact that most tourists plan to be in India dur¬ 
ing December, January and February. Hence they 
arrive in bunches, and try to get away in a bunch, 
which is impossible owing to the limited capacity of 
the steamships. This year the swarms of tourists 
have been so great that many of them could not get 
out of the country until late in March and along in 
April. 
The Americans have become the great travelers 
of the world. In India there are two American 
tourists for one of all other nationalities. The ho¬ 
tel registers bristle with U. S. A. addresses and the 
shops and hotels regard the American trade as be¬ 
ing the most profitable. One desirable result of the 
American tendency to fare afield has been the 
steady improvement in hotel and railway accommo¬ 
dations in the Far East. 
iWe said good-by to India without much regret; 
in fact, we were elated to secure accommodations on 
a small Indo-China boat that made the run to 
Penang and Singapore in about eight days. No 
berths could be secured on the ships that go by the 
way of Burma. Those ships were booked full for 
several trips ahead. So we settled down comfort¬ 
ably on the good ship Lai Sang and droned lazily 
down through the Bay of Bengal. There were ac¬ 
commodations for only twelve first-class passen- 
