Visions of oriental splendour, of palaces and temples, of superbly dressed chiefs with bands of gorgeous retainers, had floated before their mind's eye.
Instead of this they saw squalid huts, men dressed merely with a rag of cotton around them, everywhere signs of squalor and poverty.
Madras, however, they were told that evening, was not to be taken as a sample of India.

It was a mere collection of huts, which had sprung up round the English factories.

But when they went to a real Indian city, they would see a very different state of things..