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The tour chosen by the Worm aids and fifteen others took us over part of the great plain between the rivers Indus and Ganges, which is the cradle of Indian civilization. (The western end of the Indo-Gangetic Plain is now in Pakistan.) In our tour conductor we were indeed fortunate, unless Indian tourist agencies are exceptionally well endowed with talented manpower. Knowledgeable, patient, resourceful, good-humored and humorous, Mr. B. K. Madnani must be the Platonic idea of a tour conductor.
Rising at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, February 21st, we caught the Indian Airlines plane that flies daily from Delhi southeastward to Agra, Khajuraho, Varanasi and on, as we later learned, to Katmandu in Nepal. On the. outward journey, we stayed with that flight as far as Varanasi, better known to westerners as the holy city of Banaras or Benares.
When we landed, we were indeed in rural India, in the great state of Uttar Pradesh which, at the last census, had nearly one sixth of the whole population of the country. On the road we had further tantalizing glimpses of village life. Many of the .walk were covered with cakes‘of pressed cowdung, sometimes scored in simple patterns, drying in
the sun to provitJ^ fli£" villagers with what, over much of India, is their only
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