5

with a handful of sabers, which he says are from Nepaul. You drive him away, and in a moment there is another phantom, a smiling Hindoo, who folds his hands and makes a salam, and

unless you reach out for a bootjack or some more serious weapon, will unroll from his belt a bundle of precious stones. There is no escaping the merchants, and I am ashamed to confess that whenever 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 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

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. 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

was to sit in patience until the chorus ended. I never saw any trader swear on the rupee. I am told that there is some spell attached to the oath on the rupee; that a false oath would be perjury, and the native avoids the vow. All you can do is to sit and look on. You may jog your servant, and tell him you are in a hurry, and ask him to bring the negotiation to a close; you may even express a desire, if time is an object, to pay all that is asked. It makes no difference. You are in the waves of the negotiation and they bear you sluggishly on and on. The laws of the trade cannot be broken. There is so much comfort in the whole business-to your Hindoo interpreter, who is at home in his bazaar; to the merchant, who has his hook in your gills and is simply testing your pulling power, and also the crowd around-that you in time become a spectator yourself, and enter into the amusement of the transaction and watch it as a curious phase of Indian manners. As a matter of observation the merchant seems to really ask about thirty per cent. more than he will take eventually. I have seen a good many abatements in the course of those small trades, but rarely more than thirty per cent.

Mr. Borie's well-ordered mercantile mind was so disturbed by these violations of sound business maxims in his purchases of bangles, garnets, jewels, cloths, laces, and shawls that it was with a sense of relief he discovered one honest merchant, who lived on the main street, and who bid us welcome to his bazaar with the assurance that he always charged one price, and had sold rampose chuddahs to Lord Lytton and the Prince of Wales. The honest merchant whom Mr. Borie discovered lived in a second story, up a narrow pair of stone steps, which you had to reach through a courtyard. Signals of our coming had been sent, for we found the establishment in a fluttering state, Hindoos in various stages of delight meeting us as we came. The proprietor was a smoothfaced Brahmin, in a blue, flowing robe, with a bland, smiling face, who spoke English enough for us not to understand him. By dint of pantomime, and now and then a noun asserting itself, and the aid of one or two clerks who knew English, we man

9

aged to open negotiations. The merchant sat on a cushion on the floor, not resigned to fate, in Moslem fashion, leaving all things in the hands of Providence, knowing that what would be would be, and that it was not for mere men to try and change the decrees of Allah, but was eager, receptive, and conversed generally upon his honesty. Taking from his breast a packet of papers, we found them letters from various exalted people commending his merchandise. Some were from Americans

Mr. Cadwalader, Mr. Seward, and others. Then he told us he was a very good man and had saved money-some lacs of rupees. All this while servants were bringing in stuffs and throwing them around the floor. Other servants brought in trays laden with sweetmeats, among which I recall a candied mango, which was pleasant and new. Then champagne came in, and we began to feel as if we were at a fancy ball or some public entertainment, and not an afternoon visit to a shop. Mr. Borie commended the merchant for the sound business principles he had enunciated, which, he continued, were the funda