of drifting about the native quarters in whatever city I found myself
and watching the curiously leisurely and detached commercial methods of
the dealers--the money lenders reclining on their couches; the pearl
merchants with their palms full of the little desirable jewels; the
silversmiths hammering; the tailors cross-legged; the whole Arabian
Nights pageant. All the shops seem to be overstaffed, unless an element
of detached inquisitiveness is essential to business in the East. No
transaction is complete without a few watchful spectators, usually
youths, who apparently are employed by the establishment for the sole
purpose of exhibiting curiosity.

I picked up a few odds and ends of information, by degrees, but only the
more obvious: such as that the slight shaving of the Mohammedan's upper
lip is to remove any impediment to the utterance of the name of Allah;
that the red-dyed beards are a record that their wearers have made the
pilgrimage to Mecca; that the respirator often worn by the Jains is to
prevent the death of even a fly in inhalation. I was shown a Jain woman
carefully emptying a piece of wood with holes in it into the road, each
hole containing a louse which had crawled there during the night but
must not be killed. The Jains adore every living creature; the Hindus
chiefly the cow. As for this divinity, she drifts about the cities as
though they were built for her, and one sees the passers-by touching
her, hoping for sanctity or a blessing. A certain sex inequality is,
however, only too noticeable, and particularly in and about Bombay,
where the bullock cart is so common--the bullock receiving little but
blows and execration from his drivers.

The sacred pigeon is also happy in Bombay, being fed copiously all day
long; and I visited there a Hindu sanctuary, called the Pingheripole,
for every kind of animal--a Home of Rest or Asylum--where even pariah