As a British army officer in India, Burton contracted cholera, and he was sent to the Nilgiri hills to recuperate. Rather than proceed directly there however, he took a leisurely journey down the Indian coast, for he wanted to experience the "exotic East". (Burton later translated the Kama Sutra and produced an extremely naughty version of the Arabian Nights.) He is drawn to the town of Seroda, for instance, by the promise in English periodicals of "a village, inhabited by beautiful Bayaderes...Eastern Amazons...high caste maidens...equally enchanting to novelty-hunters and excitement-mongers..." Reality of course proves much different, and Burton reacts with the bitterness of a disappointed lover: he finds that "the ladies all smoke, chew betel-nut, drink wine and spirits..." and that "a stranger soon learns everything is done to fleece him..."