Publisher's Synopsis
EXCEPT for those who, under compulsion of a sick certificate, are flying Bombaywards, it isgood for every man to see some little of the great Indian Empire and the strange folk who moveabout it. It is good to escape for a time from the House of Rimmon-be it office or cutchery-and to go abroad under no more exacting master than personal inclination, and with no moredefinite plan of travel than has the horse, escaped from pasture, free upon the country side. Thefirst result of such freedom is extreme bewilderment, and the second reduces the freed to a stateof mind which, for his sins, must be the normal portion of the Globe-Trotter-the man who"does" kingdoms in days and writes books upon them in weeks. And this desperate facility is notas strange as it seems. By the time that an Englishman has come by sea and rail via America, Japan, Singapore, and Ceylon to India, he can-these eyes have seen him do so-master in fiveminutes the intricacies of the Indian Bradshaw, and tell an old resident exactly how and wherethe trains run. Can we wonder that the intoxication of success in hasty assimilation should makehim overbold, and that he should try to grasp-but a full account of the insolent Globe-Trottermust be reserved.
