I arrived in Bombay on the last day of 1919 and embarked at Calcutta for
Japan on the evening of February 17th, seven weeks later. But to embark
at Calcutta is not to leave it, for we merely dropped down the river a
short distance that night, and for the next day and a half we were in
the Hooghli, sounding all the way. It is a difficult river to emerge
from; nor do I recommend any one else to travel, as I did, on a boat
with a forward deck cargo of two or three hundred goats on the starboard
side and half as many monkeys on the port, with a small elephant
tethered between and a cage of leopards adjacent. These, the property
of an American dealer in wild animals, were intended for sale in the
States; all but one of the leopards, which, being lame, he had decided
to kill, to provide a "robe" for his wife. Nothing could be more
different than the careless aimless activities of the monkeys I had seen
among the trees between Agra and Delhi and scampering over the
parapets of Benares, all thieves and libertines with a charter, and
the restriction of these poor cowering mannikins, overcrowded in their
cages, with an abysmal sorrow in their eyes. Many died on the voyage,
and I think the Indian Government should look into the question of their
export very narrowly.