Life and Travel in India: Being Recollections of a Journey Before the Days of RailroadsLeonowens, Anna Harriette
History
Life and Travel in India: Being Recollections of a Journey Before the Days of Railroads
Leonowens, Anna Harriette
India -- Description and travel; India -- Social life and customs
Not far off there is a less picturesque but much more densely-crowded
market called the "Chine Bazaar." It runs along the filthiest part of
the city, and leads to a stone pier devoted to the native population and
to the loading and unloading of native craft and vessels. The people who
inhabit this part of the city are chiefly Lascars, or native sailors,
and foreigners from different parts of the East. On any day and at any
hour one may see what seems the entire produce of the East piled on this
stone wharf; merchandise and mankind are in great masses here. Every
inch of ground is thronged with moving forms, presenting a wild
masquerade of extravagant dress and of the most perfect undress.
Everywhere there is more filth and dirt than is possible to conceive at
first sight; odors of ghee, or clarified butter, and fish in every stage
of decomposition, assail you amid all manner of deafening sounds.
On one occasion, when visiting this part of Bombay, I saw the landing of
some pilgrims from Mecca--a dirty, ill-looking set of men, but the
moment they touched land the crowd was hushed; they walked in file
counting their beads through the parted crowds, who almost to a man
salââmed in abject reverence to the holy strangers.
I also saw some beautiful girls landed here, and that they were slaves,
brought for private sale among the rich natives, I could not doubt. I
afterward learned that women were brought here every year, and disposed
of privately to fill the hareems of the rich Musulman merchants in spite
of British laws. Riding through these bazaars, it has impressed me that
whatever Great Britain might do for the improvement of the island of
Bambâ Dèvi in the way of governing it, it would take very many centuries
before she could destroy its purely Oriental character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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