India in English Literature

of the attractions of Ahmedabad is the view of the city which awaits him on his return its walls varied with embowering greenery rising above the bed of the River Sabamati; the river-bed itself is all oriental animation the inhabitants of the city approaching the water for the purification of soul and body the washermen slapping their clothes against the stones children playing in the sand. [...] They.maintain it in their stories of the snake and tiger of the spacious bungalow and attentive servants of their polo and their dinners and the round of official life and still the imagination of England looks back over the prosaic to romantic pictures sees the glitter of snowy crags through the branches of deodars sees the mosque and the temple the flames of the poinciana regia 2 flauntin [...] of gold and scarlet the elephant and the palm the fakir naked in the sun the royal pageantry and the rajah in dubar; and through these the clearness of the air and the power of the sun 0 nd of the moon and the shining -of the blue unclouded weather. [...] And with it all comes that breath of odours and the ear hears in memory the tap-tap of the gold beaters and the cry of the vendors in their stalls the cicalas and the crickets the murmur of the wind among the pines and the immense silences and the roar of tropic storms. [...] He mentions the wild cotton Surpassing in beauty and quality the wool of sheep" 1 the crocodiles in the Indus the heat and cold of the Punjab and even in those days the diversity 2 and the fashions of the population.