Parisian reputation
throughout the surrounding country, and so there is nothing surprising in
this exhibition of wanton hilarity directed at these more strait-laced
converts to the religion of the Ferenghis. The heathen damsels, arrayed
in very worldly costumes, consisting of flaring red, yellow, and blue
garments, the whole barbaric and ostentatious array of nose-rings,
ear-rings, armlets, anklets, rupee necklaces, and pendents, and the
multifarious gewgaws of Hindoo womankind, look surpassingly wicked and
saucy in comparison with their converted sisters. The gentle converts try
hard to regard their heathen songs with indifference, and to show by
their very correct deportment the superiority of meekness, virtue, and
Christianity over gaudy clothes, vulgar silver jewellery, and heathenism.
The whole scene reminds one very forcibly of a gang of wicked street-boys
at home, poking fun at a Sunday-school procession or a platoon of
Salvation Army soldiers parading the streets.

Past the Queen's Gardens and the fort, down a long street of native
shops, and out of the Delhi gate I wheel, past the grim battlements of
Firozabad, along a rather flinty road that extends for ten miles, after
which commences again the splendid kunkah. Villages are numerous, and the
country populous; tombs and the ruins of cities dot the landscape,
pahnee-chowkees, where yellow Brahmans dispense water to thirsty
wayfarers, line the road, and at one point three splendid, massive
archways, marking some place that has lost its former importance, span my
road.

Hindoos are now the prevailing race, and their religion finds frequent
expression in idol temples and shrines beneath little roadside groves.
The night is spent on the porch of a dak bungalow just outside the walls
of Pullwal, a typical Hindoo city, with all its curious display of
hideous idols, idolatrous paintings, and beautiful carved temples with
gilded spires. The groves about the bungalow are literally swarming with
green parrots; in big flocks they sweep past near my charpoy, producing a
great wh-r-r-r-ring commotion with their wings. A flock of parrots may be
so far aloft as to be well-nigh beyond the range of human vision in the
ethery depths, but the noise of their wings will be plainly audible.

A two hours' terrific downpour delays me at the village of Hodell next
day, and affords an opportunity to inspect an ordinary little Hindoo
village temple. The captain of the police-thana sen