A QUA I XT TOWF. 261 



principally of plaster, coloured a light pink. The general 

 effect from an artistic point of view is decidedly bad, and 

 lacks the picturesqueness and variety of a narrow Indian 

 thoroughfare. The breadth of the roads does little to 

 facilitate traffic; for the inhabitants seem to regard them 

 rather as a market-place or temporary camping-ground. 

 Shopkeepers put their goods out for display, hucksters 

 place their stalls, idlers loll on charpoys, and groups of 

 smokers scpiat in the roadway, gurgling their hubble- 

 bubbles and retailing scandal. Dogs, goats, and buffaloes 

 mingle with the crowd, and share their food and blankets. 

 Now and then a wedding procession passes, preceded by 

 musicians, sometimes with Indian instruments, but occasion- 

 ally with cornets-a-piston or trombones, playing a dis- 

 cordant jumble of English airs. The women follow chanting, 

 surrounding the child-bride, who seldom seems more than 

 five or six years old. Boy bridegrooms, gaudy with 

 cotton velvet and tinsel, head rival shows, on horses with 

 scarlet-dyed manes and tails. All is chaos, and the wild 

 barbaric confusion of the scene baffles description. 



A few wayfarers on camels or ponies thread their way 

 through the crowd, which hardly gives place, and evidently 

 considers them interlopers. But the Maharaja's landau and 

 fast-trotting horses form a distinctly disturbing element. 

 Whatever the citizens may think, our coachman is un- 

 doubtedly of opinion that the road is made for him and 



