harcoal fire on the ground with one hand, and beating
off the flies with a bunch of date-leaves in the other; beside him may be
seen assistant cooks kneading dough for sheermaul[3] or other bread, or
superintending sundry kettles and cauldrons of currie, pillau, matunjun,[3]
&c., whilst others are equally active in preparing platters and trays, in
order to forward the delicacies at the appointed hour to some great
assembly.

The shop adjoining may probably be occupied by a butcher, his meat exposed
for sale in little lean morsels carefully separated from every vestige of
fat[4] or skin; the butcher's assistant is occupied in chopping up the
coarser pieces of lean meat into mince meat.[5] Such shops as these are
actually in a state of siege by the flies; there is, however, no remedy
for the butcher but patience; his customers always wash their meat before
it is cooked, so he never fails to sell even with all these disadvantages.
But it is well for the venders of more delicate articles when neither of
these fly-attracting emporiums are next door neighbours, or immediately
opposite; yet if it even should be so, the merchant will bear with
equanimity an evil he cannot control, and persuade his customers for
silver shoes or other ornamental articles, that if they are not tarnished
a fly spit or two cannot lessen their value.

The very next door to a working goldsmith may be occupied by a weaver of
muslin; the first with his furnace and crucible, the latter with his loom,
in constant employ. Then the snake-hookha manufacturer,[6] opposed to a
mixer of tobacco, aiding each other's trade in their separate articles.
The makers and venders of punkahs of all sorts and sizes, children's toys,
of earth, wood, or lakh; milk and cream shops; jewellers, mercers,
druggists selling tea, with other medicinal herbs. The bunyah[7]
(corn-dealer) with large open baskets of sugar and flour, whose whiteness
resembles each other so narrowly, that he is sometimes suspected of mixing
the two articles by mistake, when certain sediments in sherbet indicate
adulterated sugar.

It would take me too long were I to attempt enumerating all the varieties
exposed in a Native street of shops. It may be presumed these people make
no mystery of their several arts in manufacturing, by their choice of
situation for carrying on their trades. The confectioner, for instance,
prepares his dainties in despite of dust and flies, and pass by at what
hour of the day