Mark Twain On India

Here are some excerpts from Mark Twain’s travelogue, Following the Equator:

"This is indeed India; the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence… The country of a thousand nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods. It is the cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition… The one sole country under the sun that is endowed with an imperishable interest for alien prince and alien peasant, for lettered and ignorant, for wise and fool, for rich and poor, for bond and free. The one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined… Its marvels are its own; the patents cannot be infringed; imitations are not possible."