On the way, we saw many mango orchards. I said to Vishwamitra, “The Malda and Langda mangoes of Patna were already very famous.” He replied, “Now, both their size and flavor have improved even further. The mangoes from here are sent all over the world, from Sumeru (the North Pole) to Kumeru (the South Pole). Videha, Magadha, and Anga—these three regions are the world’s orchards for mangoes and lychees. A great portion of their land and inhabitants are devoted to their cultivation. The remarkable thing is that now both these fruits are available all twelve months of the year. At any time, thousands of trains, loaded with these fruits and preserved with ice, race toward various parts of Asia and Europe. The railway network is so dense that, except for Australia and some island groups, it covers the entire globe.

From Kathmandu (Nepal), Darjeeling, and Sadiya, three routes cross the Himalayas, and the railway has entered Tibet. The railway stretches far into Tibet now. The old squalor among the Tibetan people is no more. In fact, now no child of humanity anywhere on earth is deprived of cleanliness or the virtues of civilized man. Education and the means of happiness are distributed to all as needed. From Tibet, the railway line, weaving its way through Mongolia, crosses the Altai Mountains and reaches Siberia. From Mongolia, railways extend into various provinces of Manchuria and China, and then, passing through Yunnan, spread into Siam and Burma. Burma is now connected by rail to Chittagong and the Assam province. Not only that, but from Burma, passing through Malaya, a tunnel under the sea connects Singapore and Sumatra as well.

From Tibet westward, the railway network stretches through Yarkand and Kashgar in Turkestan, then to Tashkent, Samarkand, and onward to Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, and Arabia. The railways have entered Russia by crossing the Ural Mountains at several points. Here, at Constantinople, tunnels under the seas have joined Asia and Europe. Between France and England too, railways with tunnels beneath the sea have been laid. The tunnel-railway of the Suez Canal has joined Asia and Africa. In Africa...

Everywhere, too, there is a network of railways. In recent centuries, the wondrous feat has been accomplished of filling the sandy expanse of the Sahara with an immense body of water, creating a sea, and transforming millions of miles of surrounding desert into lush greenery. The population of Africa has also increased greatly. Half of Europe has migrated there, and, in addition, many people from Asia have also settled in those lands. But now, those old distinctions of race and nation are gone. All live together as one family. Africans, Europeans, and Asians are equal in education and upbringing, and even in complexion and other traits, they are becoming more and more alike. Thus, the railway lines are spread across the eastern hemisphere. From Siberia, trains pass through a tunnel beneath the Bering Strait and reach Alaska, in northern America. From there, they run through Canada, the