fares for a car that could not possibly admit more than three people.  But that was only the first of several issues.  At the next interview they decided to charge us demurrage at the rate of 16 cents an hour for all the time the car was not in motion, and, finally, at the third interview, the traffic manager said it would be necessary for us to buy six first-class tickets in order to get the empty car back to Bombay, its starting point, at the end of our journey.  This brought the charges up to a total as large as would be necessary to transport a circus or an opera company, and we decided to take our chances in the regular way.

We bought some sheets and pillow cases, pillows and old-fashioned comfortables and blankets, and bespoke a compartment on the train leaving Bombay that night.  Two hours before the time for starting we sent Thagorayas, our “bearer”, down to make up the beds, which, being accustomed to that sort of business, he did in an artistic manner, and by allowing him to take command of the expedition we succeeded in making the journey comfortably and with full satisfaction.  The ladies of our party were assigned to one compartment and the gentlemen to another, where the latter had the company of an engineer engaged upon the Bombay harbor improvements, and a very intelligent and polite Englishman who acts as “adviser” to a native prince in the administration of an interior province.

On the same train and next to our compartment was the private coach of the Gaikwar of Baroda, who was attended by a dozen or more servants, and came to the train escorted by a multitude of friends, who hung garlands of marigold about his neck until his eyes and the bridge of his nose were the only features visible.  The first-class passengers came down with car loads of trunks and bags and bundles, which, to avoid the charge for extra luggage, they endeavored to stowaway in their compartments.  The third-class carriages were packed like sardines with natives, and up to the limit allowed by law, for, painted in big white letters, where every passenger and every observer can read it, is a notice giving the number of people that can be jammed into that particular compartment in the summer and in the winter.  We found similar inscriptions on nearly all freight cars which are used to transport natives during the fairs and festivals that occur frequently—­allowing fifteen in summer and twenty-three in winter in some of the cars, and in the larger ones thirty-four in winter and twenty-six in summer, to avoid homicide by suffocation.

The Gaikwar of Baroda in his luxurious chariot did not sleep any better than the innocent and humble mortals that occupied our beds.  We woke up in the morning at Ahmedabad, got a good breakfast at the station, and went out to see the wonderful temples and palaces and bazaars that are described in the next chapter.