The tourist's beaten track in India was as thronged with American sightseers as the château country in France. Lucknow was crowded, Benares was crowded, Calcutta was crowded, and the trains that ran in all directions were crowded. A traveler wore a look of perpetual anxiety lest he should fail to get hotel or railway accommodations.
The India of one's imagination—the somber land of mystery, of untold riches, of eastern enchantment, of far-away romance—was gone, buried under picture post-cards, hustling tourists, and all the commonplaces of a popular tourist track. It was distinctly disappointing from one point of view, and yet, I suppose, one should rejoice that his fellow countrymen have cash and energy enough to travel in distant places, even though they destroy the romantic charm of those places by so doing.
Tourists in India
The rush of Americans through India was as brisk as was the rush of Americans through Europe ten years ago. Age was no handicap. There were old couples, sixty, seventy, and eighty years old, jogging along as eagerly and excitedly as young bridal couples. The conversation one encountered was always pretty much the same—how such a train was crowded, how accommodations could not be secured at such a hotel, how poor the hotels were, and how long they would have to wait to get a berth on some outgoing ship. There were many people hung up in Bombay and Calcutta vainly trying to get away, but the boats were booked full for two or more voyages ahead.
One of the peculiarities of Indian travel has been the fact that most tourists plan to be in India during December, January and February. Hence they arrive in bunches, and try to get away in a bunch, which is impossible owing to the limited capacity of the steamships. This year the swarms of tourists have been so great that many of them could not get out of the country until late in March and along in April.
The Americans have become the great travelers of the world. In India there are two American tourists for one of all other nationalities. The hotel registers bristle with U.S.A. addresses and the shops and hotels regard the American trade as being the most profitable. One desirable result of the American tendency to fare afield has been the steady improvement in hotel and railway accommodations in the Far East.
We said good-by to India without much regret; in fact, we were elated to secure accommodations on a small Indo-China boat that made the run to Penang and Singapore in about eight days. No berths could be secured on the ships that go by the way of Burma. Those ships were booked full for several trips ahead. So we settled down comfortably on the good ship Lai Sang and droned lazily down through the Bay of Bengal. There were accommodations for only twelve first-class passengers, and there were only six on board. We had elbow room for the first time since leaving Africa.
When we stopped at Penang there were two distinct sensations. One was that Georgetown, the capital of the Island of Penang, is the prettiest tropical city I have ever seen; and the other was the first shock of the rubber craze. From that time on we were constantly in a seething roar of rubber talk; everybody was buying rubber shares and everybody else was talking about starting rubber plantations. The fever was epidemic. Planters were destroying profitable cocoanut groves in order to replace them with rubber trees. Nearly every local resident was putting his last cent in rubber shares and the tales of suddenly increased wealth inflamed the imaginations and cupidity of every one who heard them. I mentally jotted down the names of one or two companies that are going to declare enormous dividends soon, but that's as far as I've got in my rubber investments.
Penang, like Hongkong, is an island. The city on the island is Georgetown, while the city on Hongkong is Victoria; but you will never hear any one speak of Georgetown or Victoria. It is just Penang and Hongkong, and the other names are useless incumbrances.