el about for a reasonable period without let or hindrance of any
sort. That is the _minimum_ which would, I believe, satisfy the best
Indian opinion, and it is inconceivable that if the situation were
freely and frankly explained to our Colonial kinsmen they would reject a
settlement so essential to the interests and to the credit of the whole
Empire in relation to India.

CHAPTER XXV.

SOCIAL AND OFFICIAL RELATIONS.

On few subjects are more ignorant or malevolent statements made than on
the attitude of Englishmen in India towards the natives of the country.
That social relations between Englishmen and Indians seldom grow
intimate is true enough, but not that the fault lies mainly with
Englishmen. At the risk of being trite, I must recall a few elementary
considerations.

The bedrock difficulty is that Indian customs prevent any kind of
intimacy between English and Indian families. Even in England the
relations between men who are excluded from acquaintance with each
other's families can rarely be called intimate, and except in the very
few cases of Indian families that are altogether Westernized, Indian
habits rigidly exclude Englishmen from admission into the homes of
Indian gentlemen, whether Hindu or Mahomedan. Intercourse between Indian
and English ladies is in the same way almost entirely confined to formal
visits paid by the latter to the zenana and the harem, and to so-called
_Purdah_ parties, given in English houses, in which Indian ladies are
entertained as far as possible under the same conditions that prevail in
their own homes--i.e., to the total exclusion of all males. So long as
Indian ladies are condemned to a life of complete seclusion the
interests they have in common with their English visitors must
necessarily be very few. On the other hand, it is not surprising that
Englishmen, knowing the views that many Indian men entertain with regard
to the position of women, do not care to encourage them to visit their
own houses on a footing of intimacy that would necessarily bring them
into more or less familiar contact with their English wives and sisters
and daughters. There is very much to admire in the family relations, and
especially in the filial relations, that exist in an Indian home,
whether Hindu or Mahomedan, but it is idle to pretend that Indian ideas
with regard to the relations between the sexes are the same as ours. In
these circumstances any social fusion between even the better c