IMPRESSIONS OF AN OFFICER OF GERMAN GENERAL STAFF OF HIS TRAVELS IN INDIA 110 YEARS AGO (3)

"It is in a spirit of deep reverence that I draw near this ancient,venerable land,the home of Budha,the magic realm of The Thousand and one Nights the storehouse of jewels & spices,the goal of un -numbered conquerors,scholars,and adventurers of all times and of all nations.

I am making ready to enter this mysterious world,that,hedged off from its fellows of the North and West behind its towering ramparts of mountain giants,isolated alike from kindred as from alien races,has been sufficient to itself, and has ordered the life in accordance with laws of its own,for it was a world whose intellect and sentiments neither extraneous influences nor the course of ages have prevailed to affect.

Its self-contained scheme of civilization,its leisurely self-absorption, have made the people of India the recluse among nations,dominated to-day ,as it was thousands of years ago,by an outlook on life and modes of thought our duller commonplaceness finds it hard to conceive.

And yet the mentality of the Indians is not remote from our own;for us India is no alien land,for from the beginning of things she has played her part in the history of Europe,and her intellectual influence has left its mark in tha annals of the spring-tide of the West. 

It was from the East that our forebears hailed;I am faring towards the land of their old home."

(To be continued)