220 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
of vice, profligacy, and poverty from these regions.* 
The travelling distance from Bombay to Calcutta is 
thirteen hundred miles, and to Madras seven hundred 
and seventy. 
The scene upon the esplanade during our stay 
was usually animated, and frequently reminded us 
of a far distant, but far dearer land. The cadets, 
who lived in a small enclosed encampment without 
the fort, used to play at cricket every afternoon to- 
wards sunset, and the game was often contested 
with great spirit and skill. One morning a Jew ven- 
tured within the enclosure occupied by these young 
men, and offered for sale some bottles of atar of roses. 
He had already presented himself at the door of my 
tent, showing me his perfume as an extraordinary bar- 
gain ; and I had purchased a small bottle from him, 
for which I paid him a rupee, a very trifling sum con- 
sidering the value of the perfume. He, however, 
stated, that having obtained it from an Arab ship 
wrecked near Cochin, he was enabled to sell it for 
a mere trifle. I had not the slightest suspicion that 
I was not purchasing genuine atar, though I was 
dealing with a Jew. Shortly after he left me I open- 
ed the bottle and found in it nothing hut cocoa-nut 
oil, the cork having been scented to disguise the im- 
posture. 
The Jews at Bombay are just as practised in de- 
ceptions of this kind and in the art of chaffering as their 
brethren of Rosemary-lane or Monmouth-street in the 
other hemisphere. In the present instance, the im- 
* Vide Hamilton ; also Public Documents passim. 
