The various trades of a Native city in Hindoostaun are almost generally carried on in the open air. The streets are narrow, and usually unpaved; the dukhauns[1] (shops) small, with the whole front open towards the street; a tattie[2] of coarse grass forming an awning to shelter the shopkeeper and his goods from the weather. In the long lines of dukhauns the open fronts exhibit to the view the manufacturer, the artisan, the vender, in every variety of useful and ornamental articles for general use and consumption. In one may be seen the naunbye[3] (bazaar cook) basting keebaubs[3] over a charcoal 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.