. Winter India . vegetable, brass, and pottery bazaars, strungdown the middle of a wide street, were centers of lifeand uproar; but the local guide bore us off to theAvorkshop of a carpet-weaver,—poor show after Am-ritsar, Lahore, and Agras factories,—and to thegate of the chief wood-carver who executes Americanorders for interior decorations. There was holidayor bankruptcy on for that day, but much search-ing and pounding on mute doors at last produceda lank Moslem with a key, who opened a great roomcontaining a table, a book of designs, and four carvedchairs, tagged with price-marks five tim
. Winter India . vegetable, brass, and pottery bazaars, strungdown the middle of a wide street, were centers of lifeand uproar; but the local guide bore us off to theAvorkshop of a carpet-weaver,—poor show after Am-ritsar, Lahore, and Agras factories,—and to thegate of the chief wood-carver who executes Americanorders for interior decorations. There was holidayor bankruptcy on for that day, but much search-ing and pounding on mute doors at last produceda lank Moslem with a key, who opened a great roomcontaining a table, a book of designs, and four carvedchairs, tagged with price-marks five times those ofthe Lahore Art School. We searched the brass ba-zaars and all the brass-shops for the pierced screensthat a winter-touring M. P. lauds as a local clouds of warm dust we drove here and there,hunting the famous kincob-shops, walking througharchways to alleys and ill-smelling courts and cul-de-sacs, where small dealers had bundles of creasedsamples of tawdry, wall-papery brocades. Others. MOUNT ABU AND AHMEDABAD 367 shook squares of tinselly stuffs from upper windows,and shouted, Fifteen rupees! for each damagedremnant. The smells of those byways were invita-tion to and promise of any pestilence, and in onedamp, fetid corner that we retreated from abruptlyeven the glib guide seemed to smell a thing or two.* Phew! the drains! the drains! What a very badmunicipal! and we never wondered that the nativestates show such a great decrease of population dur-ing the last five years of the century, while thebubonic plague raged. At the busy clothes bazaar, tinsel caps and orangejackets for little boys were the bargains of the daythat crowds were competing for, and more and morepeddlers were opening rainbow packs and preparingfor an evening bazaar. We had done our duty bythe sights and shows of Ahmedabad; we had had ourfill of local color and smells; and we drove back torest at the comfortable station. Our guide and thebearer were bewildered, and the latter tearfu
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