THROUGH THE HEART OF HINDUSTAN 



453 



The horrors of the 

 year before were still 

 fresh in the memory 

 of the people and I 

 was advised not to go 

 into the native city. 



So attractive, how- 

 ever, is the scene 

 around the Nectar 

 Pool and the Czolden 

 Temple of the Sikhs 

 that I could not resist 

 the temptation t o 

 wander barefoot 

 around the square 

 tank in the middle of 

 which stands the glit- 

 t e r i n g building in 

 which the Granth is 

 housed. It may have 

 been reaction from 

 the advice of anxious 

 friends, but nowhere 

 in India did I find 

 more courtesy and 

 conceive a deeper re- 

 spect for the people 

 with wdiom I came in 

 contact than in the 

 sacred city of the 

 Sikhs. 



Amritsar is a low- 

 lying city with a bad 

 reputation for mala- 

 ria, but is second to 

 Delhi as a commer- 

 cial center of the 

 Punjab. Two relig- 

 ious fairs, held in 

 April and November, 

 did much to spread 

 the fame of the city, 

 and famine in Kashmir drove expert 

 weavers to Amritsar, there to establish 

 an extensive industry in shawls. 



It was about this time that the Kash- 

 mir shawl furnished the fabric for many 

 a seafarer's romance and the shoulder 

 covering for the elite of Europe. The 

 demand was so great that 4,000 looms 

 were soon competing for a highly remu- 

 nerative trade. The fickle fashions of 

 Europe changed, bare shoulders became 

 popular, the shawl industry suffered, and 

 soon a thousand looms could turn out all 

 the loveliness the world demanded. 



But Amritsar, like Nizhni Novgorod, 



Photograph by Maynard Owen Williams 



A DKNTAIv STUDIO ON DEEHl's CHANDNI CHAUK 



The Delhi dentist is not restricted to humorous journals and 

 fiction magazines for his waiting clients. He shows how the job is 

 done and pictures a beneficent goddess in place of the imp who is 

 prodding one's jaw with red-hot needles. 



had gained a reputation, and trade con- 

 tinued to come to the waterlogged city of 

 the mesopotamia or doab of the Punjab. 

 From beyond the Hindu Kush came silk 

 goods which the people of Amritsar 

 copied so successfully that now Kabul 

 looks south instead of north for such 

 silk as Bokhara formerly supplied to the 

 trade mart in the midst of which the 

 Sikhs raised their holy temple. 



WITHIN Till; SIKH TEMPLE, A SCENE OF 

 BEAUTY 



The Sikh temple inclosure seems for- 

 midable at first Not only must one re- 



