Indeed, if we had been
herded together a few more days, some disease must have broken out.
And thus we set foot in India.
CHAPTER XXII. INDIA. (1876).
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart, untravelled, fondly turns to thee.
GOLDSMITH.
On arriving at Bombay, we housed ourselves at Watson's Esplanade Hotel, a
very large building. We went to see the sights of the town, and I was
very much interested in all that I saw, though the populace struck me as
being stupid and uninteresting, not like the Arabs at all. As I was new
to India I was much struck by the cows with humps; by brown men with
patches of mud on their foreheads, a stamp showing their Brahmin caste;
by children, and big children too, with no garments except a string of
silver bells; and by men lying in their palanquins, so like our hospital
litter that I said, "Dear me! The small-pox must be very bad, for I see
some one being carried to the hospital every minute." The picturesque
trees, the coloured temples, and the Parsee palaces, garnished for
weddings, also impressed themselves upon my mind.
The next day we made an excursion to see the Caves of Elephanta. These
caves are on an island about an hour's steaming from Bombay. They are
very wonderful, and are natural temples, or chapels, to Shiva in his
triune form, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, and other gods, and are carved
or hewn out of the solid rock.
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