Gandhi was used to being abused by white colonists in Natal. But this piece of invective he did not see, since it was delivered in French. The memories he carried back from Mauritius were of the generosity of the Indians. At a farewell reception, the main speaker, a Muslim merchant, compared Gandhi to a modern-day Pharaoh who guided his countrymen ‘in the rough sea far away from the rock-under-water where there may be every chance of being dashed’.
