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You are looking nearly north up the Esplanade; the city reaches off both ahead and behind you.

This is the finest railway station in India - good judges have called it the finest in the world. It cost $1,500,000 [[one million five hundred thousand dollars]]. It includes besides booking offices (for tickets), waiting rooms and refreshment rooms, a great number of offices for heads of departments and minor employees of the railway company. This is the station where you take trains for all other parts of India. It is 1,400 miles from here across to Calcutta over on the East coast (at your right), and a mail train makes the journey in forty-six hours. The cars are built and the trains conducted much as in England. Of course, the third-class carriages, being intended for the poorer natives, are quite bare; passengers in those cars sit on the floor. If you want a dramatic description of a crowd of Bombay people buying tickets and waiting for the train here at this very station, read Prince Karageorgeovitch's "Enchanted India." See also Rudyard Kipling's "Kim" for a vivid and accurate portrayal of experiences in a third-class car of a night train, just such as leaves here every evening. 

This queer little two-wheeled, springless cart corresponds to the cab of the European railway centres. Notice how the driver perches away out over the wagon-pole, with that awning above to shield him from the fiercest heat of the afternoon sun. The bullocks drawing the cart are such as are used for draught-service all over India. They take a slow trot, like horses, are strong and tough, requiring no great outlay for fodder, and they endure a great deal of ill-treatment at the hands of their Hindu masters. Religious precepts forbid the taking of animal life but a great deal of careless cruelty is practised. 

The men you see coming and going are average tradesmen and servants. 

From Notes of Travel, No. 9, copyright, 1904, by Underwood & Underwood. 


Varied method of travel - an Ekka in Bombay, India.
Diverses methodes de voyager - un Ekka a Bombay, Inde.
Berschiedene Reise-Methoden - ein Effa in Bombay, Indien.
Diferentes maneras de viajar - Una "Ekka" en Bombay, India.
Ekka, ett fortskaffningsmedel i Bombay, Indien.
Разнообразный способ путешествия - Экка в Бомбее, Индия.