p. 134

...six she stretches out her hand to help and she strikes a wall of custom which makes present progress well nigh impossible. That wall of custom is built of three kinds of stones. The customs of purdah, as child marriage and widowhood & ignorance.
We have seen visited Turkish Syrian and Egyptian women, but nowhere have we seen such absolute "purda" (meaning seclusion, liberally behind a curtain) as in India. The upper caste women, except in Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta are positively never seen. One sees occasionally a "female carriage" in the street, a small vehicle entirely enveloped by a thick curtain. One imagines a woman may be sitting within the airless enclosure but this is the only sign the visitor gets that there are such women in charge of them. In Benares the Holy City of India on a holy day the Ganges is always holy and baths...