Another and worthier preoccupation was the impending visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to India.  King Edward’s son was to follow in the footsteps of his father, who had for the first time made a Royal progress through the Indian Empire nearly thirty years before.  His progress had been a triumphal one at a period when the internal and external peace of India seemed equally profound.  That of his son was no less triumphal, though India was just entering on a period of political unrest undreamt of in the preceding generation.  Even in Calcutta, which had been seething with agitation a few weeks before, the Prince and Princess were received not only with loyal acclamations but almost with god-like worship; and all these demonstrations were perfectly genuine.  For with the curious inconsistency which pervades all Indian speculations religious and political, though countless dynasties have fallen and countless rulers have come to a violent end in the chequered annals of Indian history, nothing has ever destroyed the ancient conception of royalty as partaking of the divine essence.  The remoteness of the Western rulers under whose sceptre India had passed lent if anything an added mystery and majesty to the royalty they wielded.  Even the avowed enemies of British rule seldom levelled their shafts at the Throne.  That the King can do no wrong is a saying that appealed to the Indian mind long before the Western-educated classes grasped its real meaning under a constitutional monarchy, and began to extend its application even to the King’s Government for the purpose of conveniently discriminating between the British Government, whose good intentions were generally assumed, and the autocratic Government of India, whence all mischief sprang.  During the whole of the Royal tour, which extended to all the major provinces of British India and to several of the Native States, the enthusiasm was general, and even the Extremists did not venture a discordant note.  The Prince and Princess, whose graciousness never wearied, moved freely amongst the crowds, and the presence of the future Queen appealed strongly to the women of India, whose influence we are apt to underrate because until recently it has been exercised almost exclusively in the seclusion of the zenana.  Even high-caste ladies, Hindus as well as Mahomedans, were known on this occasion for the first time perhaps in their lives to pass beyond the outer gates of their houses in order to attend a Royal reception—­with all the precautions of course that have always to be taken to shelter a purdah party from any contact with the other sex.