Old Diary Leaves Author:Henry Steel Olcott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. SETTLING DOWN AT BOMBAY. IT was a burning hand that the Indian Surya Deva laid upon our heads as we stood on the platform of Apollo Bunder. ... more »The noonday Bombay sun of mid-February is a surprise to a Western visitor, and we had time to feel its full power before Mr. Hurrychund came to our rescue. He had gone off to the steamer just after we had disembarked, and so caused us to wait for him on the fiery quay, with the air all in a hot quiver about us. Besides Hurrychund and the three gentlemen above mentioned, I do not recollect any others having come to greet us on landing?a fact which was bitterly resented by the members of the A'rya Samaj, who charged their then President, Hurrychund, with selfish design in keeping his colleagues uninformed of our movements so that he might enjoy the first of our company by himself. The streets of Bombay charmed us with their strikingly Oriental character. The tall apartment-houses in stucco, the novel dresses of the motley Asiatic population, thequaint vehicles, the overpowering influence of the whole picture on our artistic perceptions, and the delightful sense of being at last at the goal of our long-nourished expectations, amid our dear " Heathen," to meet and live with whom we had crossed so many seas and buffeted so many storms?all these vivid impressions filled us with delight. Before leaving New York, I had written Hurrychund to engage for us a small, clean house in the Hindu quarter, with only such servants as were indispensable, as we did not wish to waste a penny on luxuries. We were taken to a house of his own on the Girgaum Back Road, standing in a comparatively forlorn compound, and adjoining his glass- roofed photographic studio. It was certainly small enough, but being predisposed to find everything ch...« less