"You are right, Dick," I sighed as we sped along, "I sacrifice the
mango paradise on the altar of Western realism. Photographs we must
have!"
The road became more and more sickly: wrinkles of ruts, boils of
hardened clay, the sad infirmities of old age! Our group dismounted
occasionally to allow Mr. Wright to more easily maneuver the Ford,
which the four of us pushed from behind.
"Lambadar Babu spoke truly," Sailesh acknowledged. "The car is not
carrying us; we are carrying the car!"
Our climb-in, climb-out auto tedium was beguiled ever and anon by
the appearance of a village, each one a scene of quaint simplicity.
"Our way twisted and turned through groves of palms among ancient,
unspoiled villages nestling in the forest shade," Mr. Wright has
recorded in his travel diary, under date of May 5, 1936. "Very
fascinating are these clusters of thatched mud huts, decorated with
one of the names of God on the door; many small, naked children
innocently playing about, pausing to stare or run wildly from
this big, black, bullockless carriage tearing madly through their
village. The women merely peep from the shadows, while the men
lazily loll beneath the trees along the roadside, curious beneath
their nonchalance. In one place, all the villagers were gaily
bathing in the large tank (in their garments, changing by draping
dry cloths around their bodies, dropping the wet ones). Women
bearing water to their homes, in huge brass jars.
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