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 CHAPTER IV

THE WHITE CITY

If we begin at the beginning, we must visit, in fancy, a city in Western India, called Porbandar, and try to recall it, as it appeared a generation ago. This was the ancestral home of the Gandhis. Many changes have come since then; even in slow-changing India. Porbandar has changed. The city of yesterday has gone. Its primitive customs, its haughty isolation, its serene atmosphere, have almost vanished. The city of to-day is not Porbandar. It occupies, of course, the old spot close to the sea. It still claims a proud position as "Capital of the Principality of Porbandar, in the sub-province of Kathiawar, in the Province of Gujarat." It still holds fifty villages in vassalage. And still its Rana Sahib is regarded as "a first-class Power." But old Hindu Porbandar has gone forever.

In the days of which we write, like most towns in Kathiawar, it was surrounded by substantial walls, some twenty feet thick, and high in proportion. These have since been destroyed. The