so read and heard of the Western Ghats[8], these
mountain slopes we have to climb up east of Bombay, that run right south
and which we are now approaching, but I had no idea they were so
fantastically like Norman ramparts and buttresses on mountain tops,
neither had I an idea that the trees and fields at their feet and up
their sides were so green. We rattle along at say fifty miles an hour,
not very comfortably, for there is heat and dust; but all along the line
are interesting groups of figures to look at. Here is a string of women
in red shawls against golden sunlit grass above a strip of blue water,
and there again, a man just stopped work sitting at the door of a dusty
hut of palm leaves and dry clay. He shades his eyes with his hand as he
watches the train pass; how his deep copper-coloured skin gleaming with
moisture, contrasts with the grey parched earth; then a group of
children bathing and paddling, at this distance they are perfectly
lovely. The young people are far more fairly formed than I expected them
to be--famine photographs probably account for this; they are black but
comely, though possibly closer inspection would dissolve the charm--here
are people, men and women, stacking corn or hay round a homestead, a
scene I have not heard described or read of in home letters or books
about India; how the pictures unfold themselves all hot and new to me,
and coloured, and at fifty to sixty miles an hour! Won't mental
indigestion wait on good appetite!

[8] Sanskrit "Gati" a way or path--Scottish "gate" is a way or path too.

We are going south-east now; Bombay away to our right over the bay, and
the Ghat we saw to the south in extended battlements and towers, now
shows in profile as one tower, on high and steep escarpments. We are
still in the low country. May I liken it to the Carse of Forth extended,
with the Kippens on either side, with the features and heat considerably
increased. I am told I should not compare homely places I know with
places unfamiliar, as it limits the reader's imagination; the Romans did
so--said, "Lo! The Tiber!" when they saw the Tay; I must try not to do
the same.

And as at home, the people at the stations become lustier and have
clearer eyes and are more powerfully built, as we get further from
town; that is not saying much here, for the strongest look as if a
breeze would blow them over; however, they may have their own particular
kind of strength. I know my boy surprised me las