It would take me too long were I to attempt enumerating all the varieties exposed in a Native street of shops. It may be presumed these people make no mystery of their several arts in manufacturing, by their choice of situation for carrying on their trades. The confectioner, for instance, prepares his dainties in despite of dust and flies, and pass by at what hour of the day you please, his stoves are hot, and the sugar simmering with ghee sends forth a savour to the air, inviting only to those who delight in the delicacies he prepares in countless varieties. The most singular exhibitions in these cities are the several shroffs[8] (money-changers, or bankers), dispersed in every public bazaar, or line of shops. These men, who are chiefly Hindoos, and whose credit may perhaps extend throughout the continent of Asia for any reasonable amount, take their station in this humble line of buildings, having on their right and left, piles of copper coins and cowries.[9] These shroffs are occupied the whole day in exchanging pice for rupees or rupees for pice, selling or buying gold mohurs, and examining rupees; and to all such demands upon him he is entitled to exact a regulated per centage, about half a pice in a rupee. Small as this sum may seem yet the profits produce a handsome remuneration for his day's attention, as many thousands of rupees may have passed under his critical eye for examination, it being a common practice, both with shopkeepers and individuals, to send their rupees to the shroff for his inspection, always fearing imposition from the passers of base coin. These shroffs transact remittances to any part of India by hoondies,[10] which are equivalent to our bills of exchange, and on which the usual demand is two and a half per cent at ninety days, if required for any distant station. The European order is here completely reversed, for the shopkeeper sits whilst the purchasers are compelled to stand. The bazaar merchant is seated on the floor of his dukhaun, near enough to the open front to enable him to transact business with his customers, who, one and all, stand in the street to examine the goods and to be served; let the weather be bad or good, none are admitted within the threshold of the dukhaun. In most places the shops are small, and look crowded with the articles for sale, and those where manufactories are carried on have not space to spare to their customers.