hore. At noon, we saw the broad main street crowded from curb to curb with men in white clothes, with gay turbans and shawls,—a crowd that swayed and surged and moved until the long expanse of turbans was like a tulip-bed in the wind. It was the climax of all Indian street scenes, and such a kaleidoscopic play of color as could only be seen there on the day telegraphic bulletins are received from the government opium auctions, which fix the price of the drug for the month.
At the great Four Corners there is a monumental fountain, and there elephants continually pace by, camel-trains pass and repass, and pigeons descend in clouds if one tosses a few grains in air. Sheeted women, with jingling anklets and full-swinging skirts, come to the corner of the jewelers' bazaar to buy their glass, brass, lacquer, and more precious bangles and nose-rings. There were wedding processions passing the fountain all that sunny day, which had been declared the lucky one of the month. Many cortèges were preceded by elephants in rich velvet and bullion trappings, their faces, trunks, and ears elaborately painted. Jeweled bridegrooms went by in velvet-lined palkis hung from silver yokes, and from time to time the processions halted, a canvas was spread on the ground for the company to sit on, and nautch-girls—middle-aged colored women in bunchy accordion skirts and full panoply of jewels—gave a deliberate song-and-dance interlude. These mature sirens literally "trod" their slow-footed measures in clumsy, dusty leather shoes that a hod-carrier might wear. Each family circle wel-
