before making my way homeward. Again the noise of shuffling feet. The
morning call is about to begin, and my nightwatch is over. 'Allah ho
Akbar! Allah ho Akbar!' The east grows grey, and presently saffron;
the dawn wind comes up as though the _Muezzin_ had summoned it; and, as
one man, the City of Dreadful Night rises from its bed and turns its
face towards the dawning day. . . .

"'Will the Sahib, out of his kindness, make room?' What is it?
Something borne on men's shoulders comes by in the half-light, and I
stand back. A woman's corpse going down to the burning-ghat, and a
bystander says, 'She died at midnight from the heat.'"


This passage may stand as a fair example of Mr Kipling's method of
dealing with India. It is an able piece of descriptive writing. It is
marked by a conscious and deliberate resolve that the "effect" shall be
made. It shows us the Indian city from a high distance, as it appeared
to an observer with a knack for vividly delivering his impressions. It
is in no sense an inspired wrestle with the reality of India; and in
that it is typical. Mr Kipling has never claimed to grasp or interpret
his Indian theme. He has stood away almost ostentatiously from the
material he was exploiting.

It is indeed the chief merit of his Indian tales that he admits himself
to be no more, so far as India is concerned, than an adventurer making
the literary most of his adventure. He has at any rate the sensibility
to be conscious that often he is in the position of a tripper before
the Sphinx. His tales are thrilled with respect and a sense of India's
power. She it is who wipes the lips of Aurelian McGoggin, who flouts
the Greatest of All the Viceroys, humbles the Legal Member of the