re making some progress in
introducing better methods of farming. Little, of course, can be done
with bulletins where such a small percentage of the people can read,
but demonstration farms have proved quite successful, and the
government is much pleased with the results obtained from employing
progressive native farmers to instruct their neighbors."

The advancing price of cotton has proved a matter of hardly less
interest to India than to America, and for several years the crop has
been steadily increasing. The 1910-11 crop (the picking ended in May)
was almost 4,500,000 bales of 400 pounds each. The necessity for
growing food crops, however, is so imperative that the cotton acreage
cannot be greatly increased--at least not soon. During our Civil War,
it will be remembered, India did her uttermost; and Bombay laid the
foundations of her greatness in the high prices then paid for the
fleecy staple. Hers is still a great cotton market and down one of her
main streets from morning to night one sees an almost continuous line
of cotton carts, drawn by bullocks and driven by men almost as black
as our negroes in the South. I was very much interested in seeing how
much better the lint is baled than in America. In the first place the
bagging is better--less ragged than that we commonly use--and in the
next place it is held in place by almost twice as many encircling
bands or ties as our bales.

{258}

All in all, I regret to say good-by to India. Its people are poor; its
industries primitive; its religion atrocious; its climate generally
oppressive, and yet, after all, there is something fascinating about
the country. For one thing, there is a large infusion of Aryan blood
among the people, and after one has spent several months among the
featureless faces of the Chinese and Japanese, these Aryan-type faces
are strangely attractive. The speech of the people, too, is
picturesque beyond that of almost any other folk, as readers of
Kipling have come to know. It is very common for a beggar to call out,
"Oh, Protector of the Poor, you are my father and mother, help me,
help me."

"I salute you," said our old guide at the Kutab Minar, speaking in his
native Hindustani, which my friend interpreted for me. "I know that
you are the kings of the realm, but I have eaten your salt before, and
I am willing to eat it again."

At the end, of course, he wished a tip. "But ask him why I should give
him anything," I said to my friend.