A Passage to India (1924) is the last and most extraordinary novel Forster wrote. Set during the period of British rule, in and around a fictional city called Chandrapore, it focuses on the friendship that develops between two men, an Indian Moslem called Aziz and an English atheist called Fielding. A woman called Adela Quested comes to Chandrapore, intending to decide whether to marry Ronny Heaslop, the city magistrate. She is accompanied by Mrs Moore, twice married widow and Ronny's mother. Aziz, a doctor and poet, chances upon Mrs Moore in a mosque and quickly feels an intense affinity with her. She and Adela want to see ‘the real India’ (46). At the Club where the British socialize, Fielding suggests: ‘Try seeing Indians’ (48). Apparently holding out the possibility of the best of both worlds (both India and Indians), Aziz offers to take them to see the Marabar caves, some twenty miles outside the city. The outing is a disaster. Two members of the prospective party, Fielding and a Hindu called Professor Godbole, miss the train, leaving Aziz and his unreliable cousin, Mohammed Latif, to look after the two Englishwomen. In the first of the caves Mrs Moore has a strange and horrible experience, in particular on account of ‘a terrifying echo’ (158), a sort of ‘Boum’ (159) sound that seems to occur in all of the caves. She rests while Aziz goes on, with Adela Quested and a guide, to visit what are believed to be the best caves, higher up, on the ‘stupendous pedestal ’ (139) of the hills, the Kawa Dol. Something happens to Adela in one of these caves, horrible enough to have her fleeing, ‘running straight down the face of a precipice’ (177). Back at Chandrapore Aziz is arrested and imprisoned, on the charge that ‘he followed her into the cave and made insulting advances’ (176). Fielding and Mrs Moore, alone of the British, are convinced of Aziz's innocence; but Mrs Moore does not remain in Chandrapore, and in fact dies on the boat back to England. At the trial Adela finally breaks down and acknowledges that Aziz never followed her into the cave. Full-scale rioting and anarchy in the city are narrowly averted.