Page 27 - To Dragma October 1929

OCTOBER, 1929 25

some to every beggar who seeks f o r alms; f o r the I n d i a n believes his
Messiah will sometime return in another form, and it may be that of a
beggar.

There are lots of motor cars in Karachi, but driving there is not
so simple as one would think. T h e bullock cart drivers go to sleep as
they drive along, letting the bullocks wander back and forth across
the road at w i l l ; there are innumerable horse drawn carriages, and lately
the bicycle business has boomed there, for every second Indian rides
one straight down the middle of the road and at the first sound of a horn,
falls off almost under your wheels.

There are no large department stores i n Karachi and practically no
satisfactory way to renew one's wardrobe, so most people t r y to bring
out enough clothes to do them for their two or three years' stay. It's
f u n n y to see people come into the club when they first come back f r o m
leave, all dressed up in the latest style, then watch those same clothes
grow shabbier and shabbier—perhaps come out disguised w i t h a new-
f r i l l or ruffle—and finally disappear w i t h their wearer. T h e n we know
another leave has fallen due and that i n another six months or so we'll
see a new lot. I t takes us about a year when we get back f r o m leave
to settle down, get our homes in order, wear all of our new clothes, and
tell about our trip home and back and all the good times we've had.
Then we begin to plan our next trip home and start the list of articles
we want to bring back, and the things we want to do and see and eat.

One winter we went up-country across the Sind Desert to Lahore,
where there was snow on the ground; to Delhi, the capital of India, and
a great tourist point; to Amritzar, where we saw the Golden Temple
of the Sikhs. W e had to take off our shoes before entering the Temple
and then were accompanied by a policeman and an armed guard, for
Sikhs are not always friendly to Europeans who enter their Temple, and
Amritzar is famous for its riots. We visited Agra and saw the T a j Mahal,
that exquisite tomb which the Emperor Shah Jehan built for his wife.

Then two and one half years after we landed in Bombay, our leave
fell clue, and we gleefully set o f f f o r home v i a Columbo, Ceylon; the
Strait Settlements, Penang and Singapore; China, Hongkong and Shang-
hai ; then into Japan, where we spent a week visiting Kobe, Nikko, and
N a r a ; and finally Yokahoma where we sailed f o r San Francisco, stopping
off at Honolulu long enough to have a good look at the beautiful island
and go for a swim at W a i k i k i .

After a short, sweet leave we went back to Karachi for another three
years and then came another leave. This time we took a different route.
On September 30 we said goodbye to all our friends in Karachi, were
garlanded w i t h wreaths o f flowers b y some o f the Indians connected with
m y husband's firm, and steamed off u p the Persian Gulf to Busrah at
the mouth of the Euphrates River. There we took the train for Baghdad,
"where we stayed several days investigating the interesting native bazaars
ajid visiting the ancient city of Babylon, which was built before the
time of Christ and has recently been excavated.

At Baghdad we took a big motor bus for a two-day trip across the