The book provides a first hand account by a retired British official of conditions in the north of the Indian subcontinent on the eve of the British departure in 1947. The author during the course of a horseback journey of over 1400 miles from Peshawar to the Central Provinces, between November 1946 and April 1947, talked with hundreds of peasants and local wayside travelers and officials. The final part of the book which was written after independence and the creation of Pakistan pulls together the insights these interviews raised with respect to politics, economic conditions and changing social attitudes and family life.