grating by the priests, and the vultures which may be seen perched by hundreds on the neighboring trees, sweep down upon their prey, tearing the flesh from the body with their hooked beaks, till the bones fall through the grating into a well or common receptacle below.

Notwithstanding this revolting method of disposing of their dead, the Parsees are the most genteel and polite people I met in Bombay. They form the wealthiest class in the community, and many of them are well-to-do merchants, whose houses and stores are among the finest in the city.

As already mentioned, the proprietor of my hotel was a Parsee; and certainly a more polite and intelligent landlord I never met. The Parsee children are particularly beautiful and well-dressed. Some groups that I passed would have attracted attention in any city, for their prepossessing appearance.

Bombay sustains the same relation to the western coast of India and the Arabian sea that Calcutta sustains to the eastern coast and the Bay of Bengal. Since the opening of the Suez Canal, Bombay has greatly increased in importance; and now it rivals Calcutta in its business enterprise, and in the magnificence of its public buildings.

The government houses, postoffice, and bank, are very fine structures; and the Esplanade is even more beautiful than the Maidan at Calcutta. The business part of Bombay, where the English merchants have their stores and warehouses, is similar to certain sections in London. I visited the Tract House, where the various religious and missionary operations are carried on. Here tracts and religious books are printed and sent all over the country. The building is spacious and beautiful, and serves a most important purpose in evangelistic work. I went to the large postoffice to inquire for letters, and found one awaiting me from home, and one or two from China and Japan. The letters were the first that had reached me for several months; and, as I was in continual motion from place to place, I could not expect to receive any more news from home until I reached Europe.

I have not space to describe the mixed and multitudinous population of Bombay, but it seemed to me by far the most cosmopolitan city of Asia. Every race, color, and variety of physiognomy appeared to be represented there; and all styles and gradations of dress and undress prevailed. The people literally swarmed in the native quarter, and the common classes either wore little or nothing,

or else they bedizened themselves with what was not worth wearing, such as rings, bangles and gewgaws generally. The better classes, native merchants, bazaar keepers and the like, dressed in plain white gowns, or loose wrappers, and wore huge turbans of various shades. Nearly all the natives were jet black, and many of them sit on their heels in the most comical fashion.

Among the greatest novelties to me were the street cars, introduced here through the enterprise of an American, and now largely patronized by the natives. They are of the same style as the cars used in summer time in our cities at home. Jumping into one that was somewhat crowded, I seated myself and looking up over the heads of the turbaned Hindoos, Mohammedans, and coal-scuttle-capped Parsees sitting in front of me, I saw the familiar sign, "J. M. Jones, West Troy, N. Y." And here I sat, riding in a Troy-manufactured car through the streets of Bombay, with all styles and stamps of oriental heathenism about me.

The fruit and flower market of Bombay, situated in a spacious and airy structure at one end of the Esplanade, is a perfect little fairy land. Here the visitor finds every tint to please the eye, and every fruit of tropical climes to tempt the taste.

The inner court has been laid out as a garden, under the direction of the English, and ferns, flowers, palms, plantains and tropical plants, grow in luxuriant profusion; while in the open arcades the natives expose piles of beautiful flowers and luscious fruit for sale-many of which are purchased for offerings in the temples—and the whole is more like a horticultural hall, than like a place of barter and trade.

We

On the morning of July first I sailed on the steamship Persia for Aden at the foot of the Red Sea, a distance of seventeen hundred miles. proceeded slowly down the bay, passing a great deal of shipping of every nationality, among which I noticed the Europa, a steamer of the Anchor Line from Glasgow, that I had seen some years before in New York harbor.

Upon a small island in the bay, about seven miles from the city, is the famous "Cave of Elephanta," so-called from an enormous statue of an elephant once standing upon the island. The cave or cavern is cut in the solid rock, and the roof is the natural rock supported by stone pillars left standing, and carved in architectural forms as seen in the illustration.

This is reached by a long flight of steps leading