business beats me altogether. At the top of the street there is a native
'tamasha' with people singing and beating tom-toms; half-way down the
street there are stone-throwing and firing, and at the bottom of the street
there are people, Europeans and Natives, shopping!" He was struck, as I
was, by the incongruity of the whole business. At Jacob's Circle there was
a great display of military and magisterial strength. Tommy Atkins had
taken up a strong position at the corner of Clerk Road; sentries paced up
and down by day and night; machine guns gaped upon the fountain erected to
the memory of Le Grand Jacob. At intervals a squadron of cavalry dashed
into the open, halted for a space, and then as suddenly disappeared; and
they were followed by motor cars and carriages containing Commissioners,
Deputy Commissioners, Police Subordinates, Special Magistrates and
miscellaneous European sightseers. All the pomp and circumstance of Law and
Order were represented there, and there could scarcely have been a greater
display of armed force, more secret consultations, more wild dashes hither
and thither, more troubled parleying, if the entire City north of Jacob's
Circle had been in flames. And yet behind it and around it the daily life
of the people moved forward in its accustomed channel, The Bhandari's
liquor-shop at the corner had its full complement of patrons, and the
Bhandari himself might be seen pulling out handfuls of thirst-producing
parched grain for those of his customers who desired a relish with their
liquor; members of that degraded class which follows one of the immemorial
vices of the East wandered round the Marwaris' shops, begging and clapping
their hands in the manner peculiar to them; and across the diameter of the
Circle strayed a group of Barots--those strange semi-gipsy looking men from
Kathiawar who act as priests and magicians to the Bhangi population. Seeing
the military and police they halted for a moment and gave one time to have,
a word with them:--"Whither go ye?" we asked, and they replied that they
were bound to the big Bhangi settlement that lies not far from the Circle.