English people, who are only surrounded by India at a certain distance.
We were enabled to study her character and customs, her religion,
superstitions and rites, to learn her legends, in fact, to live
among Hindus.

Everything in India, this land of the elephant and the poisonous
cobra, of the tiger and the unsuccessful English missionary, is
original and strange. Everything seems unusual, unexpected, and
striking, even to one who has travelled in Turkey, Egypt, Damascus,
and Palestine. In these tropical regions the conditions of nature
are so various that all the forms of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms must radically differ from what we are used to in Europe.
Look, for instance, at those women on their way to a well through
a garden, which is private and at the same time open to anyone,
because somebody's cows are grazing in it. To whom does it not
happen to meet with women, to see cows, and admire a garden?
Doubtless these are among the commonest of all things. But a
single attentive glance will suffice to show you the difference
that exists between the same objects in Europe and in India. Nowhere
more than in India does a human being feel his weakness and
insignificance. The majesty of the tropical growth is such that
our highest trees would look dwarfed compared with banyans and
especially with palms. A European cow, mistaking, at first sight,
her Indian sister for a calf, would deny the existence of any
kinship between them, as neither the mouse-coloured wool, nor the
straight goat-like horns, nor the humped back of the latter would
permit her to make such an error. As to the women, each of them
would make any artist feel enthusiastic about the gracefulness
of her movements and drapery, but still, no pink and white, stout
Anna Ivanovna would condescend to greet her. "Such a shame, God