solid rock. In the neighbouring isle of Salsette are the cave-temples of Kanhar (pp. 237, 241), which, though worth a visit, are, however, unequal in grandeur to those at Karli, on the road to Poonah. This city, seventy-four miles south-eastward from Bombay, was in earlier days the capital of the Mahratta Peishwas. It is, however, now fallen into decay, though it still contains 100,000 inhabitants, and is the military head-quarters of Western India, its position-1,800 feet above the sea-rendering it more healthy than Bombay or any of the coast-lying towns. Nassik, a sacred place of the Hindoos, Surat, where was established the first English factory in the Mogul's dominions, and Ahmadabad, an ancient walled city, may be noted as other towns of Bombay possessing much interest. But Haidarabad, near the head of the delta of the Indus, Kurrachee, the chief port of the same province, almost at the western extremity of India, and to a lesser degree Shikarpore-though Kurrachee has to a great extent eclipsed it are the most important places commercially in the valley of the Indus, while Meerut, Jacobabad, and Dudur are all of more or less interest. Haiderabad-not to be confounded with Hydrabad, the Nizam's metropolis-was the old capital of Sindh, and is still noted for its swords, matchlocks, and other arms. On the bank of the Indus opposite to it is Kotra, the upper terminus of the Sindh Railway, and it is in communication with Kurrachee, 100 miles distant, and other cities of the valley by steamers, railways, and native craft. Kurrachee, though surrounded by a sandy desert, and only a few years ago a collection of mud huts and poor houses, is now the main outlet for the trade of Sindh and the Punjab, and, owing to these circumstances and its accessibility during the prevalence of the south-west monsoon, has within the last three decades increased greatly. More than 1,000 vessels, including coasters, yearly enter its harbour-so called; and when the railway system of the Punjab and Sindh is completed Mr. Andrews believes that it will command much of the trade that now finds its way from the inner country to Calcutta on the one hand and to Bombay on the other. Shikarpore, of which Captain Burton has given so characteristically graphic an account, is perhaps an even more typical Sindhian city than any of those we have noticed; and as a visit to it will give us an opportunity of noting some of the habits of the East, we may as well conclude the chapter with a notice of it and its people. It is twenty miles beyond Sukkur, and the moment the traveller alights in its busy streets he feels that he is very far away from the life of the West. True, the "Sahib," as the Englishman is conventionally termed, is here, with his pith helmet and his puggaree, his lordly stride and his unmistakable air of master. The Sahib collector is punishing the evil and leaving the well alone, but above all, gathering the dues of the great Maharanee and her soubhadhar, the Viceroy in Calcutta. There is also the Captain Sahib chaffering in the bazaar about some trifle which only a few years ago his predecessors of the army of Runjeet Singh would have taken with scant courtesy and no aches of conscience. But the "plunger" of Jacob's Horse good-naturedly wearies himself with cheapening a few rupees off the sword he is buying from the Lahore armourer, and meantime treads gingerly, lest his spurs should scratch the rank crop of naked legs in their vicinity.

The Captain is at home, and, from the respectful salaams and teeth-showing which meet him on every side, seems a familiar personage. We are making a journey in

imagination, and are not not therefore bound down by the exigencies of chronology. Fearing no charge of anachronism, we may accordingly hazard a conjecture that the polyglot officer who escorts us through the Shikarpore bazaar is called Richard Burton, a well-known, greatly feared, and withal a much-respected name in the "Unhappy Valley," and in many other parts of the world which we shall never look upon. The student of mankind may here have a peripatetic museum. All India which loves

gold mohurs, rupees, or annas congregate thither, and every race from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, from Calcutta and Bombay, defiled of the Infidel, to Holy Bokhara, the Mecca of the Asiatic Mohammedan, jostle each other, intent on gain, pleasure, or the mere gratification of that curiosity which is the least of Oriental passions. It is a populous city of merchants, bankers, money-changers, dealers in every description of wares under the Indian sun, or which the wants of 300,000,000 people can call for. The town is built on a low-lying plain, surrounded by gardens and trees, which nevertheless do not prevent the entrance or the exit of the all-abounding dust, though they relieve with their tinge of freshness the hot glare and glitter of a sub-tropical town.

There is a broken mud wall crumbling into mouldering fragments, and the places where eight great shady Eastern gates had been, mute memorials of departed days and of the stronger arm that has now interposed itself between the citizens and their foes. The suburbs are large and straggling, and the streets-need we say it?-are narrow, crowded, and unclean. The houses are mostly of woodwork and sun-dried bricks, with low verandahs, and unglazed holes for windows. Public buildings there are none, and the

bungalows of the city's masters-civil and military-are outside the town. A few mosques tell of the prevalent faith of the people; but in Shikarpore assemble men of many creeds, and a good many whose god is Cent.-per-cent., the presiding deity of the Great Bazaar, which stretches across nearly the whole breadth of the city. It is a long, tall-walled passage, narrow, darkened, and guarded against the afternoon sun by mats laid over the beams which connect the houses on either side of it. At 4 p.m. it is High 'Change; then it is that the greed of filthy lucre runs its course.

Here is the flat-faced, broad-limbed little Brahui from the mountains of Beloochistan

-subjects of the Khan of Khelat, in much the same degree as are that knot of Afghans settling the price of their camels lieges of the Ameer of Cabul: that is to say, they are only nominally so, and in reality, when out of the range of his smooth-bore cannon, do pretty well what seems good or bad in their own eyes, within the circuit of their jezail slugs. The Afghans talk eagerly together, are energetic in their gestures, and though we do not understand what is the subject of discussion in Pushtu, when we look at their fierce flashing eyes we recognise the prudence of that regulation which compels them to deposit their arms in a place where they are not so likely to come in contact with their neighbour's fifth rib as if kept in their girdles. The Belooch is a freebooter, and eyes the possible plunder around with a sharp professional eye. A Sindhian gentleman, in brocaded cap and chintz-padded robe, passes by, preceded by a running footman, who pushes aside the mountaineer, and, judging from the wild-cat expression in the man's face, would probably have been paid for his insolence had the " charay" or single-edged dagger been as handy as in days prior to the British "Raj" it was. Shoulder to shoulder stand a brawny Mollah or priest from Herat, with a Hadji who has been to Mecca, and if the Persian proverb be true, a rogue among rogues. The rough-tongued Pathans stand bargaining with smoothspoken Persians; "Candahar meets Mooltan, intent on preventing cheating by cheating; the tall turban of Jesulmere nods to the skull-cap of Peshin; and the white calico sleeve of Guzerat is grasped by the iron claw of Kelat. Here a greasy Moslem cook pours a ladleful of thick oil upon a fizzing mass of kababs, whose greasy streams, floating down the bazaar, attract a crowd of half-famished ryots to enjoy in imagination 'the pleasures of the table.' Here a Hindoo vendor of dried fruits, sugar, seeds, spices, opium, and hemp-the tout ensemble fragrant as an apothecary's shop in the dogdays-disposes of his wares to a knot of Jat ladies, with a pair of scales and a set of weights which would make Justice look her sternest. And here grim Eastern Cyclopsblacksmiths, tinmen, and armourers-are plying their clanging, clashing, ringing trade in an atmosphere of 150° and in the proximity of a fire that would roast a lamb." All is noise, yells, threats, counter-threats, chaffering, and din indescribable. Two crafty Hindoos settle a bargain with their hands concealed beneath a sheet, but otherwise not one copper coin changes owners without a dozen offerings and rejections, and an amount of bad language which would even appal a frequenter of Billingsgate, could he or she understand a tithe of the babel around. Bullion is all-valuable in the East; time is of no account. All the ninety-and-nine smells of the world are here, and at least one quite peculiar to the place itself. The ear is sick of noises: the nose suffers from the odours of the Orient, the lungs are poisoned with the stifling air: the very eye revolts at the sight of what it lights on.

As we pass out of the city to the Captain Sahib's bungalow we are struck with the appearance of some fresh arrivals who are dismounting from their camels. They have women and children with them in abundance, old men and young ones, all very independent-looking, but some of them, if the truth were known, slaves bought in the Khivan market, captives in the Persian valleys of the Turkoman bow and spear; but all are under a head, who directs the encampment and marshals the patriarchal-looking

throng. They are the Lohanee merchants, the wandering traders of Afghanistan and Central Asia, who yet conduct their business in the primitive fashion which prevailed in the days when Marco Polo pilgrimed unto the Great Khan of Tartary, or in that still remoter day when the merchantmen going "down into Egypt" invested in Joseph as part of their venture. These Lohanee traders-or Provindiahs, as they are called-have their homes about Ghuznee, where they spend the summer. They then descend the passes before they are blocked up by the snow, between Ghuznee and the Indus, in vast caravans of eight or ten thousand souls, the whole tribe moving bodily, men, women, children, and cattle, carrying their goods on camels and ponies. At Derajat they leave their aged people and children in black felt tents, with their flocks and herds in the rich pastures bordering on the Indus, while the able-bodied men—who must deposit their weapons at the first frontier British post-push across the Punjab with their goods for sale either in that province, in Sindh, or in the cities on the banks of the Ganges, where their carpets, felts, wool, bullion, and chrysolite rosaries always find a ready market. These old-world merchants are found far afield, and are not above taking advantage of steamboats and railway trains to help them on their journeys. In the bazaars of Delhi and Agra, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Mirzapore, and even Calcutta, Bombay, Rangoon, and Assam, the shepherd-traders-distinguished by their tall figures, independent bearing, and pre-eminently dirty persons-can be seen. They push ahead of the main body, taking with them a few samples, letters of credit, &c., and arrange bargains preparatory to the arrival of the caravans or kafilas. In the Bolan Pass, which is their usual route to India, they are liable to be attacked by the wild mountaineers; but, as a rule, their numbers enable them to compound with these clansmen for a reasonable amount of black-mail. Sir Bartle Frere tells of the wife of an "eminent merchant" of this tribe, whose husband had been detained longer than he expected at Delhi, offering the Kafila-Bashee, or head of the caravan, demurrage at the rate of 10,000 rupees (£1,000) a day to defer the upward march of the caravan, so as to enable her lord to rejoin it, as she knew that, if left behind, he would be unable to follow them through the passes except at great risk to his life and property. These merchants are many of them very wealthy, for they do an annual trade of at least a million and a half sterling. Eastward they go to Calcutta, and westward to the great market of Bokhara. Here they bring English cloths, sugar, indigo, Benares brocades, gold thread and lace, leather, groceries, and drugs; and carry back to India Russian gold and silver wire, raw silk and silk fabrics, carpets, Afghan postins or pelisses, rosaries, horses, almonds, raisins, preserved fruits of many kinds, furs, bullion, and such-like articles. With these men we may journey as far as we choose to go, provided, firstly, that we pay them; secondly, that they care to take the risk of escorting a possible spy; and thirdly-which is our business-that we are willing to risk being flayed alive or tortured to death in a pit of sheep-ticks, as were poor Conolly and Stoddart. These provisoes are easily overcome, for we live in mythical times of piping peace, and are not troubled with the difficulties that encompass more material wanderers in Upper Asia. But we must have money. We may pay the Provindiah his baksheesh, and pile on our camels stores to last us till we arrive at a place where they can be conveniently renewed. But the moment we cross the British boundary, and