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UR stay in Agra was short, but it would have been impossible to have left India without seeing the Taj. This building is said to be the most beautiful in the world. As we came into Agra in the early morning the familiar lines of the Taj-familiar from study of pictures and photographs-loomed up in the morning air. You have a view of the building for some time before entering the city. The first view was not impressive, and as we looked at the towers of the Taj, and the white marble walls that reflected the rays of the rising sun, it seemed to be a beautiful building as a temple, and no more. Perhaps the long night ride may have had something to do with our indifference to art, for the ride had been severe and distressing, and it was pleasant to find any shelter and repose. The General and

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Mrs. Grant went to the house of Mr. Laurence, the nephew of Lord Laurence, and a member of one of the ruling families of India. The remainder of the party found quarters in a hotel, the only one I believe in the place, a straggling, barn-like building, or series of buildings, over which an American flag was flying. Indian hotel life is not the best way of seeing India, as most travelers in passing through the country are entertained in private houses, bungalows of the officials, mess quarters of the officers, or missionary stations. The Agra hotel seemed to have been built for the millennium, when all shall be good and crime unknown. There were no gates or windows, no doors-all was open. The rooms all ran into one another, and the boarders seemed to live on a principle of association. I never knew who was the landlord, never saw a servant in authority. Everybody seemed to keep the hotel, and when you wanted anything you simply went and took it. Mr. Borie was accommodated with an apartment on the ground floor; the others quartered above him.

After dressing we called on our friend and found him surrounded by all the merchants of the town. The moment a Sahib comes to Agra the whole town comes to see him, and opens a bazaar at his door, and sits there all day with carbuncles, garnets, sandal-wood, arms, mosaics, photographs. If you walk across the way to breakfast, you are the center of a chattering group who force their wares upon you, and if you give them any encouragement, by which I mean if you do not inflict upon them personal violence, which none of us were disposed to do, they will invade your chamber and nestle at your bedside as you sleep. The forte of the Hindoo is patience, and he believes tell you your that if he waits you will buy. So when you do not want anything, that you have resolved to buy nothing, that you have no money, he calmly sits on his haunches and waits. If you make a small purchase for charity's sake, on the principle of giving a shilling to an organ-grinder to get rid of him, it only gives the merchant courage and his friends couYou sit down in your room rage, and they all come and wait. There is a bearded Moslem to read or write, and look up.

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u reach out for a bootjack or some more serious weanroll from his belt a bundle of precious stones. There ping the merchants, and I am ashamed to confess that we were sorely pressed we sent them to Mr. Borie,

who was the purchasing member of the party, and never impatient with the merchants, always finding amusement in trying to open conversation and in examining their slender stocks of goods.

The propensity of the native mind to barter and sale is amusing. The impression among the inhabitants of the country, as you go from place to place, is that you have come to buy. The moment it is known that a Sahib is in town all the peddlers and the merchants from the bazaars come to your lodgingplace, and encamp on the veranda or under the trees on the lawn, bringing their stuffs and trinkets. They sit like a besieging army and do not move; sit all day chattering and waiting. The purchasing members of our party are Mrs. Grant and Mr. Borie, and as we come in from a drive or a walk in the cool of the evening, we are apt to find Mr. Borie sitting with a swarm of peddlers around him, calmly inspecting the jewels, the silks, the silver, and the gold. Mrs. Grant's ideas of purchasing are affected by her sympathies, and her disposition to pay the peddlers more than they ask, because they look so poor and so thinly clad. Mr. Borie's ideas of merchandise are based upon the rules which governed trade when he was a Philadelphia merchant, and what troubles him is the elastic quality of trade in India, and the absence of a rule as to one price. He lays down this principle of business economy with emphasis to his Hindoo friends, and I have no doubt it would bear good fruit if they understood him. The want of an English valuation has prevented the peddlers from comprehending several maxims of business advice, which no one is more capable of giving than our friend. But a fixed price would take away all the charm of trading to a Hindoo. The bazaar is his life. It is to him. what the exchange, the church, the theater, the coffee-house, and the club are to the Saxon. He goes to the bazaars to be amused and informed. All the gossip of India floats through the bazaars. The professional story-tellers-the comedians of Indian life-tell him stories, or read from the ancient books, or recite the deeds of their ancestors, or tell him what the stars have in store for him. Prophecy, astrology, and omens have a

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meaning, and in anxious days, when there is peril or mutiny in the land, sedition or treason will flash through India from bazaar to bazaar. When we come to a new place our servants are always impatient until they have leave to go to the bazaars, ostensibly for food, but really to hear all about the town. The Government of India knows the feeling of the people from no other source so clearly as from the spies who report the gossip of the bazaars.

So if Mr. Borie were to succeed in planting his sound business principles of ready cash and fixed prices in India, it would destroy the poetry of trade. To the native mind the charm of trade is dickering. It amuses him and brings all his faculties into play, and is also an amusement to the crowd who come and sit around on their haunches and watch the proceedings, as at home a mob would watch a boxing-match. Having taken your estimate the battle begins warily, for the Hindoo is an ingenious, nimble creature, and will not lose his trout at the first nibble. If you are skilled in Indian bartering, the moment a price is named your true tone is one of astonishment, anger, grief; and if you have a cane raise it, as though your indignation was roused to such a pitch that it was with difficulty you could be persuaded from taking summary vengeance on a peddler who would presume to insult your understanding by asking such a price for garnets or shawls. When a trade opens in this way the sport is sure to be fine, and the bazaars are hopeful of a good day. But none of us were up to this, and our purchases began in a slow, plaintive way, until Kassim was called in as interpreter, and then the trade took a poetic turn. Kassim's cue was despair, and from despair to anger. He began with a remonstrance to the dealers upon the sin and madness of such a charge. Then he appealed to their religion. Taking out a silver rupee, and pointing to the head of the Queen and the imperial superscription, he asked the dealer whether he would swear that his wares were worth what was asked. This suggestion led to loud clamors, in which both parties took part, the voices rising higher and higher, and the spectators coming in to swell the chorus, until all that was left

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