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PEN AND PENCIL SKETCHES.

The entrance to it is like the approach to Pandemonium. A hot confused vapour meets the intruder ; and the hissing hum of busy thrifty bargain-driving

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natives, mixed with the silver tinkle of precious metals, blend together in endless sounds and uncouth noises. As you near it, an almost fearful anxiety, a timid anticipation shrouds you, lest you are on the

eve of meeting a vision of enchanting female beauty surrounded by Eastern magnificence too heavenly for the eye to look on, or some horrid apparition which would at once chase reason from her throne. How shall I give the reader a just idea of this place; how lead him amid the gloom and twilight of its shadows, along its tortuous passages, which ramify, artery-like, in innumerable and endless directions ; how marshal the stranger's steps to the several depots of goods to be met with in this huge pantechnicon ?

There is nothing within my recollection that I can at present compare it to; nor is there anything which is not procurable within its precincts, except meat and vegetables. Up and down the avenues, broadcloths lay in massy piles-heaps on heaps arise in tiers, the produce of the looms of Europe, Asia, Africa and America. Silks of various hues reflect each other's brilliant varieties of colours, and in their several places of exposure, they lie tempting the giddy and rakish eye of the voluptuous Musalman to purchase an offering for "the light and favourite of the

zenana."

Boxes are deposited for the lovely eyes within the secret chambers of the daurhee, containing rich material for clothes-silver and gold brocade. Specie and bars of the precious metals, pearls in masses of all sizes and hanging in deep festoons, are exposed

to the open gaze. Shields, military arms, matchlocks inlaid and embossed, gold and silver hukkas await customers. Rich embroidered carpets, gorgeous shatranjees, shawls of Cashmere, embroideries of Benares, muslins of Dacca, embroidered slippers, the odours of Persia, the dried fruits of Arabia, all lie contiguous and most resurrection-like everywhere around.

The vile confection of fried ghee steams and belches forth to pall the appetite with its rank fumes, and the heavy drugged odoriferous tobacco melts and mixes with the fragrant vapours of the sweetest perfumes. The exquisite fragrance of Galistān's sweets fall on the senses in a sleepy odour as the traveller passes along.

In some parts it is an atmosphere of spices. The very air is drugged and throws a lull of oppressive languor, a spell over the imagination, an enchantment over the whole scene that binds it with remarkable interest on the vision and admiration of the European stranger.

The gold and silver brocade shops, rich depositories of embroidered slippers and turbans, the jewellers' magnificent stores of pearls and emerald kanthees (necklaces), the diamond bāzā-bands (armlets), sarpechs (diadems), kalghees (ornaments on on the turbans), of rubies, emerald lolaks (earrings); all these, and the thousand and one various glittering

parts of Asiatic dress and costume, shine here in all the sparkling splendour and beauty of the lovely mixtures of gold and silver, gems and stones, silks, satins and velvets. All these precious wares, though not understood by the passing stranger, nevertheless force from him surprise, delight and admiration.

The shops in themselves are fascinating, being lined with a shining mixture of silver leaf; talc and transparent paints, though fantastically, are not unpleasingly mingled. These tinselled reflections cast their false lights around the dark interior and darker figure of the occupier, who sits mysteriously at the back of his dūkān, or reposes in listless apathy awaiting the casual customer. It is surprising how he maintains his composure amidst the din of natives, the creaking of ungreased hackery wheels, and the mists of surkhee or brickdust, which, disturbed by the countless multitudes who throng the narrow and confined thoroughfare, flies in suffocating volumes like the simooms of the desert, pervading every hole, corner, chink and cranny within its limits.

The houses behind the shops, where the different traders reside, are of a most miserable description, small, confined, dark and dirty. The varieties of their architecture are endless, and may be said to coincide in no one thing that I remember, save general dilapidation. Convenience in the interior apartments is never thought of, and very often all the several

purposes of cooking, eating, drinking and sleeping are performed in one close room.

The internal economy of the house is ill attended to. No attempt at comfort is made; all gives place to the engrossing occupation of trade, and in strict attention to this are the time, thoughts and entire movements of the trader absorbed.

The roads that wind through this beehive-like bazaar, common alike to foot and other travellers, are at some periods of the year ankle deep in mud, and at others they throw up volumes of fine dry dust similar to a resurrection of pumice from a volcano. At no time during the year can they be said to be of the cleanest kind; added to this, their narrowness is most perplexing and inconvenient. Consequently, mephitic vapours impregnate the surrounding atmosphere and float around.

As regards the external arrangement and architecture of the dwellings in and about the bazaar, they cannot be described so as to give any adequate idea of their peculiarities or characteristics. Their general outline consists of a shop, open to the street or road, of about ten feet square; the open front is screened from the sun's rays by a mat, which is spread over and supported by bamboo poles, thus shading the whole front of the opening where the worldly goods of the modee (merchant) are deposited and exposed for sale.

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