ggests substituting the carrying of a basket! A laughable incident
is told of a European gentleman who employed a number of men to carry
sand; thinking to lighten their labor, he purchased wheelbarrows, but on
visiting the scene of action a week later, he found the men with the
barrows on their heads! No doubt, the reply to his protest was, "It is
custom."

Another deplorable condition in India is found among women, particularly
of the lower classes, as they are considered of a more inferior order
than the men of the family and are treated with little respect, being
virtually slaves. The higher class lead secluded lives, but do not
escape the inflexible law that demands the marriage of a girl by the age
of fourteen, or the ostracism thrust upon the child widow, who, on
returning to a home of which she was once an honored member, finds
herself virtually an outcast. Her pretty clothes are taken from her, and
she is required to do the menial work of the family; this is the Indian
protest against the abolishing of the suttee, or the burning of widows
on the funeral pyre of their husbands,--cruelties prevented by English
rule, as are also the practice of child suicide and the passing of the
Juggernaut car over the prostrate bodies of living victims.

These phases are not pleasant to contemplate, but are none the less
necessary to know, if one is to form even a superficial idea of
"conditions." It is gratifying to learn that still more reforms are
advocated, and that there are to be more schools established, similar to
the one originated by Ramabai, not far from Bombay, as a refuge for
child widows. She received financial aid when in the United States a few
years since. Mrs. Annie Besant has also established, at Benares, a
school under Theosophical auspices, called Central Hindu College; this
has for its object the combination of religious, moral, mental, and
athletic instruction for Hindu youths.

[Illustration: _Country scene in Bombay_]

The European residents of Bombay lead their own lives, and the social
usages are quite the same as in England; the usual "sports" abound
there, such as golf, tennis, and cricket, polo, and the races, while
yachting has great prestige under the auspices of the aristocratic yacht
club on Apollo Bunder.

The Victoria and Albert Museum has a fine building, but an unimportant
collection; it stands in Victoria Gardens (a park of thirty-four acres,
well laid out), and near the south entrance