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40
AN INDIAN PATRIOT

progress. With his usual generosity, he suggested that the property which his father had left, together with the family jewels, if need be, should be sold to provide the necessary funds for this venture.

With the mother it was different. She realised, with a woman's insight, the moral and spiritual perils of such a course. Her Hindu training led her to recoil from it. Realistic tales of London life had filled her with horror. Nights were spent in prayer and days in argument, before at last she consented. But even then consent was only given on condition that the youth should bind himself by a threefold oath of renunciation.

There remained but few things, after this, to be done before starting. One of these was to visit the old home at Porbandar. Mohandas had never travelled so far alone before, but recognising that now he must dare to be self-reliant, he set out on his journey. It was made partly by waggon, and partly on camel-back, and Porbandar was reached in safety.

Sir F. S. P. Lely was at that time the British Administrator in Porbandar, and it was within his power to grant a scholarship to any promising Indian student, which would materially help him in London. To obtain such a scholarship was partly