The Reminiscences of Zafrulla Khan — Page 2
2 REMINISCENCES OF SIR MUHAMMAD ZAFRULLA KHAN along, but everyone looked to London as the centre in many respects; it certainly was the financial and economic centre, and, I think in a sense, also the intellectual centre of the world. Thus it was fortunate that during the formative years of my life I had the opportunity of observing some facets of life in the British Isles at that time, and of registering impressions of it. My hobby, while I was in England, now that I look back upon it, apparently was travel. During vacations I always went on trips, and before I went home in October, 1914, I had travelled practically all over Europe, with the exception of the Iberian Peninsula and the Balkans. I had been as far afield as St. Petersburg, as it then was, in the summer of 1913, one year ahead of the war. It was also the tri-centenary year of the Romanov dynasty. In Finland, I went all through the lakes up to the North, and did a very rash thing: I shot the rapids in the Ulea River. From England I had travelled from Harwich across the North Sea to Gotebourg, Sweden. From Gotebourg I went by river steamer through the lakes and the Gotha Canal on to Stockholm. These were all very delightful experiences which I often recall, but nothing seems to have been the same again after the First World War. I returned to India, as it then was, in October, 1914. We traveled by the ill-fated S. S. Arabia, which was one of the mail steamers of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. The German destroyer, Emden, was then operating in the Arabian Sea. It had already sunk several vessels. We made the voyage all right, but on a subsequent voyage the Arabia, like so many other vessels, was sunk by the Emden in the Arabian Sea. I arrived home some time in November and started practice with my father at Sialkot in the beginning of 1915. My father was then at the top of the civil practice at Sialkot. Occasionally, he took on criminal work, but his natural bent was towards civil work, out of which he preferred to do cases relating to land. He told me that I could best use my time with him by making myself familiar with the system of land records and the method of tracing the history of every plot of land backwards to 1855, i. e. , almost to the advent of the British administration into that part of India. That was one great benefit that I derived from my association with considerable influence over my outlook on life, particularly over my religious views. In August, 1916, I moved to Lahore, which was the capital of the Province and where the High Court of the province had its seat. My