We planned a rather extensive tour, and with the assistance of Messrs Cook, worked out a complete itinerary through India, ending at Ceylon, from whence we purposed to return in the following March.
ARRIVAL OF MR. DADABHAI NAOROJI AT BOMBAY, DEC. 14, 1906
On December 14 M. Dadabhai Naoroji arrived by the Arcadia at Bombay on his way to the National Congress at Calcutta of which he had been elected President. He had a great welcome. Flags and triumphal arches were put up along the esplanade, and he was brought from the Taj Mahal Hotel in a motor car decorated with flowers. An enormous crowd turned out to welcome him, chiefly of the Parsee community, and Parsees were conspicuous in the balconies of the houses and hotels along the route of the procession and parsee inscriptions of welcome hung across the streets. It was a striking scene from our balcony altogether. The last golden rays of the sun were slanting across the open esplanade alternating with broad luminous shadows and along the front streamed a vast white clad crowd—so different to the black crowds we are accustomed to in Europe—a white crowd varied with notes of bright colour and black here and there, and the red bunting floating around the bronze equestrian statue of King Edward VII. in the foreground: while the balconies were gay with Parsee ladies in their delicate embroidered silks, canary coloured, pink, blue, green, violet and scarlet.
CHAPTER III
AHMEDABAD
We left Bombay for Ahmedabad on December the 15th. Finding that the best train was a night one, and as it was a journey of some three hundred miles or more, and time was an object, we made up our minds, though not given to night travelling, to make an exception to our usual practice, although we should lose the sight of the country by the way. Railway travelling in India is quite as comfortable as one might expect. The carriages, it is true, vary on different lines and according to age, but, as a rule, the trains have separate carriages for Europeans and for different classes of natives, and it is often quite possible to have an entire compartment even for a long distance. On some lines the first-class carriages are scarcely better than the second, but the fare is double. The best carriages have compartments containing two long leather-covered seats, each side under the windows, which can be turned into sleeping couches at night. There is a good space between them and also at the end between the doors, and a lavatory is always attached. Above the seats are slung two upper berths, so that the compartment could be arranged for four sleepers. Any amount of light luggage can be taken into the compartments by passengers, but the heavy must be registered. The windows are protected from the sun by Venetian shutters, which can be let up or down, as well as glass, clear or toned, and sometimes fine wire screens. Outside there is a sort of hood, between which and the tops of the windows is a space for air, so that the fierce heat of the sun is tempered, and the carriage shielded to a certain extent from its rays.
We found very well-appointed sleeping-cars to Ahmedabad, but divided into ladies’ and gentlemen’s compartments. As it happened, another couple were the only others travelling by the first-class sleeping-car besides ourselves, so that we were able to arrange between ourselves that husbands and wives were not divided, each pair having a compartment to themselves.
Ahmedabad was reached about half-past seven in the morning. A crowd of coolies usually rush to seize your baggage on the arrival of a train, and our bearer was useful in keeping them at bay a bit. There was a Dak bungalow at Ahmedabad, but we did not feel any decided leaning towards it, and, finding there were quite decent bedrooms to be had at the station and that we could feed in the refreshment-room, we decided to stay there.