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184
WINTER INDIA

tree again. In time the bearer was made to understand, and to lead the ponies by the bridle out of the enchanted square, and they splashed along soberly enough through wet and gloomy avenues to the far-away hotel. This was an incongruous, opera-bouffe sort of arrival in and introduction to the city of one's soul and dreams, where more of sentiment, beauty, and haunting charm abide than in all the peninsula; but sentiment with difficulty survives the disenchantment and jarring contacts of Indian travel. One must see India and spend his sentiment on it afterward.