We wandered contentedly around here and there in India; to Lahore, among other places, where the Lieutenant-Governor lent me an elephant. This hospitality stands out in my experiences in a stately isolation. It was a fine elephant, affable, gentlemanly, educated, and I was not afraid of it. I even rode it with confidence through the crowded lanes of the native city, where it scared all the horses out of their senses, and where children were always just escaping its feet. It took the middle of the road in a fine independent way, and left it to the world to get out of the way or take the consequences. I am used to being afraid of collisions when I ride or drive, but when one is on top of an elephant that feeling is absent. I could have ridden in comfort through a regiment of runaway teams. I could easily learn to prefer an elephant to any other vehicle, partly because of that immunity from collisions, and partly because of the fine view one has from up there, and partly because of the dignity one feels in that high place, and partly because one can look in at the windows and see what is going on privately among the family. The Lahore horses were used to elephants, but they were rapturously afraid of them just the same. It seemed curious. Perhaps the better they know the elephant the more they respect him in that peculiar way. In our own case—we are not afraid of dynamite till we get acquainted with it. Following the Equator

Strathcarron on Lahore:
Lahore is noticeably poorer than Delhi, Old or New, and I suspect that outer or tribal Pakistan is noticeably poorer than outer or tribal India. Certainly its religion-bound, education-free prospects are much poorer. Delhi’s streets are covered in trash but occasionally, just occasionally, it is swept up and sifted for trinkets and, even more occasionally, bits of it for recycling. Here in Lahore the trash is denser and older and without the benefit of cows and goats chomping on it as a first line of attack. Twice I saw makeshift bonfires near the market; when the garbage gets too bad someone takes the initiative and burns it, creating more pollution. In Delhi they are making some effort to tackle the foul air, introducing four-stroke and LPG rickshaws, gas-powered town buses and the like, while here the smelly old two-stroke rickshaws and old, old cars and buses belch out smoke unabashed. In Delhi if one is lost it is certain that at least a shop owner will speak enough English to set you back on track; here even the pharmacy owner I ask doesn’t speak English. In Delhi beggars have their pitch and are, by and large, passive; here they wander around and are active and persistent. In Delhi one sometimes feels like one is in the twenty-first century, with hope and pride in the air; here in Lahore one more often feels like one is in the nineteenth, with fear and despair in the eyes. And I miss seeing women out and about, especially brightly dressed and bangled women. (Page 211)