ed beard with the air of a man who has
got successfully through a very important task, steps into his slippers,
and presents himself for "pice."

Pice is duly administered to him and his three salaaming associates,
when, lo! a fifth candidate mysteriously appears, also smiling and
salaaming expectantly. Although I haven't had the pleasure of a previous
acquaintance with this gentleman, the easiest way to escape gracefully
from the sacred edifice is to backsheesh him along with the others. These
backsheesh considerations are, of course, small and immaterial matters,
and one ought to feel extremely grateful to all concerned for the happy
privilege of feasting one's soul with ever so brief a contemplation of
the things in the cabinet, and more especially on the bristle-like yellow
hair. These joy-inspiring objects, ramshackled from the storehouse of the
musty past, fulfil the double mission of keeping alive the reverence of
devout Mussulmans who visit the mosque, and keeping the Ancient and
Hopeful well supplied with goodakoo.

My camera having duly arrived, together with a package of letters, which
are always doubly welcome to a wanderer in distant lands, I prepare to
resume my southward journey. The few days' rest has enabled me to recover
from the wilting effects of riding in the terrific heat, and I have seen
something of one of the most interesting points in all Asia. Delhi is
sometimes called the "Home of Asia," which, it seems to me, is a very
appropriate name to give it.

Neatly clad and modest-looking females, native converts to Christianity,
are walking in orderly procession to church, testaments in hand, as I
wheel through the streets of Delhi on Sunday morning toward the Agra
road. Very interesting is it to see these dusky daughters of heathendom
arrayed in modest white muslin gowns, their lithe and graceful forms
freed from the barbarous jewellery that distinguishes the persons of
their unconverted sisters. Very charming do they look in their
Christianized simplicity and self-contained demeanor as they walk
quietly, and at a becoming Sabbath-day pace, two by two, down the Chandni
Chouk. They present an instructive comparison to the straggling groups of
heathen damsels who watch them curiously as they walk past and then
proceed to chant idolatrous songs, apparently in a spirit of wanton
raillery at the Christian maidens and their simple, un-ornamented attire.
The fair heathens of Delhi have a sort of naughty,