wford market
this afternoon fresh fish, and dried and unfresh, and the vendors
thereof. There were many kinds of so-called fresh fish, but the most
were dried, to mere skin and bone, sharks and sprats, piled in baskets
or hanging in bundles. Diminutive wrinkled women sat on little bits of
wet mat in rows, and chopped the "fresh" fish into little morsels with
little choppers by the light of little cruisie oil lamps, that flickered
and smoked beside them, and lit up their puckered little chocolate
faces, glinted on their teeth and gums scarlet with betel, and threw
warm lights on the customers faces, who leant forward to close range and
haggled, and, I daresay, said the fish wasn't fresh--and if they had
asked me, I'd have entirely agreed with them. Respectable looking Parsi
men in tight broad cloth coats and shiny black pointed pot hats did this
marketing--not their wives--peered through their spectacles very
carefully, down their long noses at each little chunk. I hoped they
could smell no better than they could see; and the grotesque little
women slipped the minute coppers they secured under the damp mat on the
wet stones between their feet. That was all very poor and small and
sordid, but the grain sellers were pleasant to look at. They sat in nice
clean booths, with around them an endless variety of neat sacks and
bowls displaying all kinds of rice and corn and lentils and baskets of
bright chillies and many other dried fruits for curries.

To chronicle some more small beer, I may put down here that we dined
last night at the Yacht Club. The Yacht Club has little to do with
yachting. There are models of one or two native-built boats in the
passages and rooms; these have deep stems and shallow sterns, evidently
meant to wear, rather than to go about. We did not hear of any yachting
going on, why I do not quite know, as I'd have thought The Bay a perfect
place for racing, and with its inlets a rather pleasant cruising ground,
but perhaps the sun makes sailing uncomfortable. There are both lady and
men members. You can live, dress, bath, and entertain your friends, or
be entertained by them, hear music, read papers, write, talk, and walk
about in pretty grounds, all pleasantly, decently, and in order, for it
is all very open and above board. I do wish we could have such clubs at
home, I mean in Edinburgh, instead of our huge dismal men's clubs where
never a lady enters, and food, drink, and politics are the only
recogni