Kipling left the strong light and darkness of India aged just five, but fortunately for his future readers, returned home aged sixteen in 1882. I found myself at Bombay where I was born, moving among sights and smells that made me deliver in the vernacular sentences whose meaning I knew not. Other Indian-born boys have told me how the same thing happened to them. After these, my English years fell away, nor ever, I think, came back in full strength. Rudyard Kipling was immediately put to work, writing for such local newspapers as the Civil and Military Gazette in Lahore and the Pioneer in Allahabad. The former appeared six days a week and would be remembered by Kipling as my mistress and most true love. Although worked hard, Kipling's need to write was unstoppable, and he published his first collection of verse as well as creating his celebrated short story collections. Right at the end of this five-year period of almost demonic literary energy he wrote nineteen extraordinarily vivid travel essays as he explored the independent Kingdoms of Rajasthan.
