That old joke about the English being slow is no joke—it's a sad fact

And every time the Englishman has explained to me that he wasn't trying to break the stone

Just to see whether our English cousins over here in India had caught that joke yet, when our train crossed a stream I would draw a chance English traveler's attention to the ubiquitous dobe flailing a stone, and wonderingly ask: "Why does the man try to break the stone that way?"—and every time the Englishman has explained to me that he wasn't trying to break the stone; and he would further kindly explain, "That's the way the Indians do their washing," and he would invariably add: "Beastly stupid, don't you know, isn't it?"

And every time I've sadly admitted that it was.

XXX
ENGLISH AS "SHE IS SPOKE" IN INDIA

Benares is located on the Ganges River and is right in the center of things for devout Hindus—Benares bearing the same relation to Hinduism that Jerusalem does to Christianity.