drill and emery-wheel driven by the foot. There was a sociable jade merchant of silky, persuasive manners, who lost much time trying to convince me that gray was green and that any soft stone, if it were even grayish-green, was jade, and that brown streaks and white clouds were desirable variations in the monotonous monochrome surface. After this prelude, he produced better pieces of this most fascinating and oldest lucky stone in the world. Bullock-carts crowded us to the wall and camel-trains brushed contemptuously through the narrow bazaars. One camel, loaded with baskets, scraped a destroying path through the tortuous lane, tearing down flimsy awnings and curtains, sweeping signs and trade samples along and tramping them under his spongy feet, while the shrieks of the despoiled tradesmen filled the air.
All the way touts dogged our steps. "Please come my shop. Please buy my shop," rang in my ear whenever I stopped to look or to point the camera. They followed us, pleading, if we walked; they leaped off and on the carriage-step if we drove; and "Jao!" had no significance to them save when emphasized by the bearer's stick. One persistent nagger drove us almost to frenzy with his lamentations and upbraidings whenever we stopped at a shop-front. We bade him "Jao!" and to stay "jao," but he was omnipresent, and to get rid of him we went to his shop. He had nothing but weather-worn rubbish; and while he ran to borrow stock from a neighbor we made our escape.
At the large carpet-factory ninety-seven looms
