Travelers complain also of the pestiferous peddlers who pursue
them beyond the limit of patience. We were advised by people who
know India not to buy anything until we reached Delhi, because
that city has the best shops and the best bazaars and produces
the most attractive fabrics, jewelry and other articles which
tourists like to take home to their friends. And we found within
a few moments after our appearance there that we would have no
difficulty in obtaining as many things as we wanted. We arrived
late at night, and when we opened the doors of our chambers the
next morning we found a crowd of clamoring merchants in the corridor
waiting to seize us as we came out. And wherever we went--in
temples, palaces, parks and in the streets--they followed us with
their wares tied up in bundles and slung over their backs. When
we drove out to "The Ridge," where the great battles took place
during the mutiny of 1857, to see a monument erected in memory
of the victims of Indian treachery, two enterprising merchants
followed us in a carriage and interrupted our meditations by
offering silks, embroideries and brass work at prices which they
said were 20 per cent lower than we would have to pay in the
city. When we went into the dining-room of the hotel we always
had to pass through a throng of these cormorants, who thrust
jewelry, ivory carvings, photographs, embroideries, cashmere
shawls, silks and other goods in our faces and begged us to buy
them. As we rode through the streets they actually ran at the
sides of the carriage, keeping pace with the horses until we
drove them off by brandishing parasols, umbrellas and similar
weapons of defense. We could not go to a mosque or the museum
without finding them lying in wait for us, until we became so
exasperated that homicide would have been justifiable. That is
the experience of every traveler, especially Americans, who are
supposed to be millionaires, and many of our fellow countrymen
spend their money so freely as to excite the avarice of the Delhi
tradesmen. And indeed it is true that their goods are the most
attractive, although their prices are higher than you have to
pay in the smaller towns of India, where there is less demand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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