Here is a verbal sketch of Dohnavur by Amy Carmichael:

    This chapter is written for one who likes to make a map for the mind as he reads. It will be of no interest to any other, and may be omitted without loss to the story as a whole.

    If you approach Dohnavur from the South, you find yourself in a village street, and, turning in at the gate that opens off the street, you pass through a moon-arch with Salvation on the outer side, and Praise on the inner, set clear upon it in Tamil script. And then you are in the protective courtyard (so to speak) of the children's world.
    This has for its western wall the old bungalow, built perhaps a hundred and fifty years ago, now very decrepit. The walls of some of its rooms are striped in rainy weather with long, untidy, reddish patches, and the whole house clamours for large repairs, re-roofing and the like. But, in spite of that, it sets us all an example of good-tempered fortitude, for it stays up. Two gates open into the compound which is home to so many happy children.
    And now, if you are a casual person, you will see only trees, little houses, children big and small, and a central building, Indian in feeling, fitting into its place as chief House of all our houses. Most of our buildings have the deep-eaved Travancorian roofs, and some have the curly corners that the Chinese carpenters brought to the west coast of India, and all, even the moon-arches, which are pure China, find themselves at home with one another: and, like our composite family, drawn from a score of different races, communities, and castes, are very comfortable together.
    You will pass on through the Round; the school-girls live there in cottages set more or less round their courtyard school, whose two passage-ways lead to the House of Prayer and enclose a quiet garden. If you are interested in detail, you may see an office and bookroom, a workroom where much needlework is done, and a long, low kitchen where between twenty and thirty thousand gallons of milk a year are dealt with on open fires. And then you will go to the Square, a cheery place where the Buds from two or three to five or six years old will probably welcome you with outstretched hands; for it has not crossed their minds that there is such a thing in the world as an unfriendly person, and of course you are not unfriendly.
    You will see their kindergarten - their very own - a new and, we think, beautiful possession; and their little hospital called "Others," and a tiny cottage-hospital, called Hope, and doctor's and nurses' rooms, and babies' nurseries.
    And you will pass on to the Teddies' delightful habitations. You will see swarms of small boys there (and hear them too). Then you will see a little house where many a widow has been welcomed and comforted, and a kitchen so unlike our home-kitchens that you hardly recognise it for what it is, with its open porch and shelves of polished brass rice-bowls. (You may have noticed that each compound has its kitchen with grinding-stones, huge rice-boilers, storeroom, and woodshed. Perhaps you have mildly wondered at the un-Western air of it all.) If you penetrate farther, you come to the laundry, where quantities of babies' things are washed; and, on the borders of a Hindu village to the west, you see a large enclosure once a farm, but now a converts' home.
    The boys' world, with its great shady trees, courtyards, schoolrooms, workshop, weaving-shed, dovecotes, gardens, and above all, boys - many boys of all sizes and kinds - lies a quarter of a mile to the north-east, and beyond are some of our Indian fellow-workers' homes. (You may chance to see babies there, but they may be shy.) The farm and its fields may attract you, for there are Australian Illawara shorthorns and friendly little calves, and boys eager to show you their treasures. Turning south-west again, you find yourself in the busy land of carpenters' and blacksmiths' workshops, store-rooms, engine-room, office, and more little Indian homes.
    Here, unless you are medically inclined, you will stop, merely glancing across a small bridge to a low tower in the distance, showing a soft terra-cotta against the mountains. That tower is the centre of the Place of Heavenly Healing. It is a world to itself; we leave it for the present.
    These buildings, all of them simple; these children, big and little; trees, flowers everywhere, if it be the rainy season, green grass, and here and there, under the trees, ferns - all of this you have seen.
    And you have been perhaps a trifle surprised to see the foreign women in saries, and the foreign me also in Eastern dress (unless hard at work at something that asks for shorts). You may have noticed, however, that, though modern India sometimes follows Western ways, most boys and men of the older India are in white - often dirty white - while with us of Dohnavur, colour, except on great days, seems to be the general custom. And you may have wondered why. The answer is simple: economy. Colour is more economical than clean white, and we are free to do as we please. India is one of the few countries in the world where there is perfect liberty about dress. A man may wear anything he likes, from ashes to a stiff collar (and all to match). A woman (unless she be widowed) may wear any colour she likes. There is none of the bondage of the West in this matter in India. And in the older India, where our lot is cast, the folly of fashion is unknown.
    You may have asked a question or two about this, and perhaps your eye has been pleased by the general harmony of terra-cotta earth, and buildings which seem to have grown out of the earth, the soft green of many trees and the unobtrusive people, part of it all, and belonging, not clashing with it; you may have been unconsciously refreshed by the absence of jarring notes.
    But all this lies on the surface. It is open to the casual, and many see no more. If you do see more, it is because "there is that between us which is not of yesterday." And if you have known anything of travail of spirit for the sake of the children of India, so innocent but so imperilled, you will understand something of that deep, grateful, very humble joy that says,

I have liv'd
To see inherited my very wishes,
And the buildings of my fancy.

    But how show what lies behind? I asked one of our Fellowship, who understood how baffled we feel when we try to do so. And she told me of how, years ago, she had gone to see lantern pictures of an Arctic expedition. There was an interlude, and a very different scene filled the stage. She saw a pool, or what appeared to be a pool, with reeds and water-plants growing round the rim, and sitting in the water was a lovely languorous Indian girl. Soft music filled the air, and the girl rose slowly and stood in the pool and swayed to the rhythm of the music that fell like a breath of wind about her. "And I felt instinctively that all was not well with that lovely child. Long afterwards, when I came to Dohnavur, I understood. I have never been able to forget."
    God grant that some who look may never be able to forget.
    For the significance of this work depends upon its background - the existence, I mean, of that evil of which the Lotus-pool may be taken as a symbol. The waters of that pool are not clean, but miry, its depths are very deep. Forget it, and there is little of moment to see in Dohnavur, except that it is always a pleasure to one who is fond of children to see them happy and cared for. Remember it, and there is something poignant in the air of the place; and the feel of a child's hands clasping yours, the candid eyes looking up into your face, will catch your heart. You will not be able to forget it, ever.

-From Windows by Amy Carmichael