IMPRESSIONS OF AN OFFICER OF GERMAN GENERAL STAFF OF HIS TRAVELS IN INDIA 110 YEARS AGO (7)

Towards evening a fourth traveller got into our carriage,an Eurasian.

That is the name they give to the descendants of a white father and a native mother in India.

For several decades the Eurasians have been intermarrying.They are all Christians,for the most part Roman Catholics.They wear European dress exclusively,and adopt western habits only, more especially whisky.

Neither Eurasian nor Indian,the Eurasians occupy an uncomfortable twilight position.They would like to count for whites, but are not acknowledged by them. Nor does the native make a boast of their kinship.Their deplorable fate has made these half-castes suspicious and shifty.

While they are endowed ,so I am told,with intelligence and alertness,they inherit for the most part the defects-not the qualities-of both races.Left to their own devices,they are alleged to lose their heads on the smallest provocation.The more extraordinary does it seem that Eurasians are almost exclusively engaged in the railway service of India.

However, in spite of our Eurasian guard and engine-driver,I reach Baroda after a twelve hours' journey without mishap.

It is still early in the morning.

Mrs B. is wrapped in deep slumber.All the more does the Major now come to the fore. These Yankees, so often misunderstood,are no commanders in our sense of the word.They only hold brevet rank,whether as husbands or as military men.And yet they acquit themselves,and not in their places of business alone,as the most accomplished strategists.

What would the majesty of the American woman   without her male appendage amount to ?