The hotels of India have a very bad name.  There are several good ones in the empire, however, and every experienced traveler and every clubman you meet can tell you the names of all of them.  Hence it is not impossible to keep a good hotel in India with profit.  The best are at Lucknow and Darjeeling.  Those at Caucutta are the worst, although one would think that the vice-regal capital would have pride enough to entertain its many visitors decently.

Bombay at last has such a hotel as ought to be found in Calcutta and all the other large cities, an architectural monument, and an ornament to the country.  It is due to the enterprise of the late Mr. J. N. Tata, a Parsee merchant and manufacturer, and it is to be hoped that its success will be sufficient to stimulate similar enterprises elsewhere.  It would be much better for the people of India to coax tourists over here by offering them comforts, luxuries and pleasures than to allow the few who do come, to go away grumbling.  The thousands who visit Cairo every winter are attracted there by the hotels, for no city has better ones, and no hotels give more for the money.  Hence they pay big profits, and are a source of prosperity to the city, as well as a pleasure to the idle public.

The most interesting study in Bombay is the people, but there are several excursions into the country around well worth making, particularly those that take you to the cave temples of the Hindus, which have been excavated with infinite labor and pains out of the solid rock.  With their primitive tools the people of ancient times chiseled great caverns in the sides of rocky cliffs and hills and fashioned them after the conventional designs of temples, with columns, pillars, vaulted ceilings, platforms for their idols and pulpits for their priests.  The nearest of these wonderful examples of stone cutting is on an island in the harbor of Bombay, called Elephanta, because at one time a colossal stone elephant stood on the slope near the landing place, but it was destroyed by the Portuguese several centuries ago.  The island rises about 600 feet above the water, its summit is crowned with a glorious growth of forest, its sides are covered with dense jungles, and the beach is skirted by mangrove swamps.  You get there by a steam launch provided by the managers of your hotel, or by Cook & Sons, the tourist agents, whenever a sufficiently large party is willing to pay them for their trouble.  Or if you prefer a sail you can hire one of the native boats with a peculiar rigging and usually get a good breeze in the morning, although it is apt to die down in the afternoon, and you have to take your chances of staying out all night.  The only landing place at Elephanta Island is a wall of concrete which has been built out across the beach into four or five feet of water, and you have to step gingerly lest you slip on the slime.  At the end of the wall a solid stairway cut in the hillside leads up to the