Excerpt from Indian Pictures and Problems A book of travel Sketches must begin somewhere; and, rather than attempt the dreary task of describ ing the long journey from London to Bombay in all its well-known detail, I prefer to choose mid-ocean for my first scene. Travellers may be divided into two categories - those whose chief interest lies in places, and those Whose attention is fixed upon the manners and customs of people. The reader will not have a far journey before he discovers that I belong to the second of these classes. A voyage to India at the end of the leave season has, therefore, much to recommend it to those who think with me. For the others there Is little interest beyond the Suez Canal and the rock of Aden, whereas we have the promenade deck and the smoking-room always with us. No journey that I have ever made surpasses in human interest the passage from Marseilles to Bombay at the beginning of the cold weather, especially if it be undertaken in some vessel of lesser pre tensions than a P. And O. It matters little that, for the first day or two, one feels an utter stranger on board and to some extent lonely that experience soon wears off in the sunshine. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.