A Passage to India 印度之行
CHAPTER I
Except for the Marabar Caves and they are twenty miles off the city of Chandrapore presents nothing
extraordinary. Edged rather than washed by the river Ganges, it trails for a couple of miles along the bank,
scarcely distinguishable from the rubbish it deposits so freely. There are no bathing-steps on the river front,
as the Ganges happens not to be holy here; indeed there is no river front and bazaars shut out the wide and
shifting panorama of the stream. The streets are mean, the temples ineffective and though a few fine houses
exist they are hidden away in gardens or down alleys whose filth deters all but the invited guest. Chandrapore
was never large or beautiful, but two hundred years ago it lay on the road between Upper India, then imperial
and the sea and the fine houses date from that period.