. There we had the undulating waters,
the lovely harbor with its wooded and hilly islands, the ascending
terraces of the Ghats: everything was energetic, the whole invitation
of Nature was toward air, light, freedom, heaven. But here one spot
is like another spot; this level ground is just the same level ground
there was a mile back; this corn stands like that corn; there is an
oppressive sense of bread-and-butter about; one somehow finds one's
self thinking of ventilation and economics. It is the sausage-grinding
school of poetry--of which modern art, by the way, presents several
examples--as compared with that general school represented by the
geniuses who arise and fly their own flight and sing at a great
distance above the heads of men and of wheat."

Having arrived and refreshed ourselves at our hotel, whose proprietor
was, as usual, a Parsee, we sallied forth for a stroll about Poona. On
one side of us lay the English quarter, consisting of the houses and
gardens of the officers and government employes, and of the two or
three hundred other Englishmen residing here. On the other was the
town, extending itself along the banks of the little river Moota.
We dreamed ourselves along in the lovely weather through such of
the seven quarters of the town as happened to strike the fancy of my
companion. Occasionally we were compelled to turn out of our way
for the sacred cattle, which, in the enjoyment of their divine
prerogatives, would remain serenely lying across our path; but
we respected the antiquity, if not the reasonableness, of their
privileges, and murmured not.

Each of the seven quarters of Poona is named after a day of the week.
As we strolled from Monday to Tuesday, or passed with bold anachronism
from Saturday back to Wednesday, I could not help observing how
these interweavings and reversals of time appeared to take an actual
embodiment in the scenes through which we slowly moved, particularly
in respect of the houses and the costumes which went to make up
our general view. From the modern-built European houses to the
mediaeval-looking buildings of the Bhoodwar quarter, with their massive
walls and loop-holes and crenellations, was a matter of four or five
centuries back in a mere turn of the eye; and from these latter to
the Hindu temples here and there, which, whether or not of actual age,
always carry one straight into antiquity, was a further retrogression
to the obscure depths of time. So, too, one's