A certain sex inequality is,
however, only too noticeable, and particularly in and about Bombay,
where the bullock cart is so common--the bullock receiving little but
blows and execration from his drivers.
The sacred pigeon is also happy in Bombay, being fed copiously all day
long; and I visited there a Hindu sanctuary, called the Pingheripole,
for every kind of animal--a Home of Rest or Asylum--where even pariah
dogs are fed and protected.
I was told early of certain things one must not do: such as saluting
with the left hand, which is the dishonourable one of the pair, and
refraining carefully, when in a temple or mosque, from touching anything
at all, because for an unbeliever to touch is to desecrate. I was told
also that a Mohammedan grave always gives one the points of the compass,
because the body is buried north and south with the head at the north,
turned towards Mecca. The Hindus have no graves.
In India the Occidental, especially if coming from France as I did, is
struck by the absence of any out-of-door communion between men and
women. In the street men are with men, women with women. Most women
lower their eyes as a man approaches, although when the woman is a
Mohammedan and young one is often conscious of a bright black glance
through the veil. There is no public fondling, nothing like the familiar
demonstrations of affection that we are accustomed to in Paris and
London (more so during the War and since) and in New York.
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