"In spite of the fact that one knew it all beforehand as an Englishman would to whom India in picture and by hearsay was familiar from childhood, who had played with brass s and had broken gilt alabaster s and s and s (with dire corporeal results) before he donned , it was strange to me to realize the fact of the actual worship of Ganesa and Siva and Vishnu in their own land in the temples of their cults at , as strange as if I were to find and still venerated in some Egyptian temple such as or . Egypt and her gods and priests all alive, mixed up with London; with the , , , the , and the : that was the impression I gained of Bombay. There was no doubt of the specifically English (not merely European) impression, and the combination is extraordinary. I felt I loved better Egypt, where the old gods are safely dead and their lore can be studied by such as I without impossible modern contaminations and antinomies, where the ; now calls uncontradicted the simple praises of the One, where the clean desert air breathes health, not septic soddenness, and where one is not likely nowadays to find an - in one’s bed."