ocal councils, and women have them
equally with men. Any other arrangement would have seemed merely
preposterous to the Nairs; and perhaps if any exclusion had been
contemplated it would have been of men rather than of women.

Other incidental results follow from the equality of the sexes. The
early marriages which are the curse of India do not prevail among the
Nairs. Consequently the schooling of girls is continued later. And this
State holds the record in all India for female education. We visited a
school of over 600 girls, ranging from infancy to college age, and
certainly I never saw school-girls look happier, keener, or more alive.
Society, clearly, has not gone to pieces under "the monstrous regimen of
women." Travancore claims, probably with justice, to be the premier
native State; the most advanced, the most prosperous, the most happy.
Because of the position of women? Well, hardly. The climate is
delightful, the soil fertile, the natural resources considerable. Every
man sits under his own palm tree, and famine is unknown. The people, and
especially the children, are noticeably gay, in a land where gaiety is
not common. But one need not be a suffragette to hold that the equality
of the sexes is one element that contributes to its well-being, and to
feel that in this respect England lags far behind Travancore.

Echoes of the suffrage controversy at home have led me to dwell upon
this matter of the position of women. But, to be candid, it will not be
that that lingers in my mind when I look back upon my sojourn here. What
then? Perhaps a sea of palm leaves, viewed from the lighthouse top,
stretching beside the sea of blue waves; perhaps a sandy river bed, with
brown nude figures washing clothes in the shining pools; perhaps the
oiled and golden skins glistening in the sun; perhaps naked children
astride on their mothers' hips, or screaming with laughter as they race
the motor-car; perhaps the huge tusked elephant that barred our way for
a moment yesterday; perhaps the jungle teeming with hidden and menacing
life; perhaps the seashore and its tumbling waves. One studies
institutions, but one does not love them. Often one must wish that they
did not exist, or existed in such perfection that their existence might
be unperceived. Still, as institutions go, this, which regulates the
relations of men and women, is, I suppose, the most important. So from
the surf of the Arabian sea and the blaze of the Indian sun I se