piled up vile masses of iron and crates of
earthenware. Where buxom, merry-eyed
lasses once flirted with incipient burgo
masters, are shiploads of rice, and cargoes
of curry stuffs. The perfume of the
rose and the oleander are supplanted by the
caustic fragance of garlic and salt-fish.

Dotted along this fragrant street, among
rice stores, iron depots, and dried fish
warehouses, are the shops of the Moormen traders,
the only attractions for Europeans in this
quarter. The supply of all descriptions of
useful or fancy articles of domestic use
to the English is in the hands of these
people, who may be said, indeed, to be the
Jews of India. Here and there a Burgher
or Eurasian may be seen vending pickled
pork, perfumery, and parasols, but never one
of the indigenous natives of the country.
They cannot make up their roving, unsettled
minds to shopkeeping; although some of their
women have now and then the industry to
become manufacturers and vendors of
"hoppers," "jaggery," and other Indian
village luxuries.

Your regular Moormen shopkeepers, or
bazaar-men, possess such terrifically
unpronounceable names that, by common consent,
their English customers designate them by
the numbers of their shops. In this way a
litile, thin-faced, shrivelled-up Moorman, a
small portion of whose name consists of
Meera Lebbe  Hema Lebbe Tamby Ahamadoc
Lebbe Marcair, is cut down to Number
Forty-eight; which is the title he is usually
known by.

The most flourishing of these gentry is
certainly Number Forty-two; a portly,
oily-skinned, well-conducted Moorman, with
a remarkably well-shaven head, surmounted
on its very apex by a ridiculously little white
linen cap, like an expanded muffin. His
bazaar is admitted on all hands, especially
amongst the fair sex, to be " first chop."
Yet a stranger would imagine that the
fiscal had possession of the place and was on
the point of selling off by auction the entire
contents: so confused and motley an
appearance do they wear.

The doorway, narrow and low, is jealously
guarded by a pile of grindstones, surmounted
by a brace of soup-tureens on the one side,
and by tools and weapons of offence on the
other; so that the chances are that, in trying
to escape the Newcastle and Staffordshire
Charybdis you get caught upon the sharp
points of the Sheffield Scylla. Once past
these dangers, however, you forget all
your anxiety and nervousness in the bland
sunny countenance of Number Forty-two.
He is truly delighted to see you, he is so
anxious to place the whole contents of his
store at your complete disposal that one
might fancy his sole object in life was to
minister to the pleasure of the English
community.

Number Forty-two directs your attention,

in the most winning manner, to a
choice and very dusky collection of hanging-
lamps of the most grotesque fashion. His
fowling-pieces are pointed out to you as
perfect marvels. If you require any blacking-
brushes, or padlocks, or Windsor soap, or
smoking caps, or tea-kettles, he possesses
them in every possible variety, just out by
the very latest ship.

Our bazaar is by no means aristocratic.
On the contrary, it is most decidedly republican
in all its tendencies. It admits of no
distinction of ranks. The higher born wares
are placed on an equal footing with the most
lowly merchandise, the most plebeian goods.
Earthenware jostles cut-glass; ironmongery—
and some of it rare and rusty too — elbows the
richest porcelain; vulgar tin-ware hob-nobs
with silks and satins. Tart-fruits and pickles
revel in the arms of forty yards of the best
crimson velvet. Pickled salmon in tins are
enshrined amongst Coventry ribbons.

I don't happen to require any of his
perfumery or preserves, nor am I anxious about
muslins or plated-candlesticks; I simply want
to select a few very plain wine-glasses, and I
know there are none better than at Number
Forty-two. Piles after piles of the fragile
glass-ware are raked out from under a mass
of agricultural implements, and it is really
marvellous to see how harmlessly the brittle
things are towsled and tumbled about amongst
ponderous wares and massive goods. How
peacefully the lions and the lambs of
manufactures repose together within the dusty
dark walls of Forty-two.

My portly friend with the muffin-cap is
never disconcerted by any demand, however
out of the common way. From ships' anchors
and chain-cables down to minnikin-pins, he
has a supply of every possible variety of wares.
I have often asked for things that I never
dreamt of requiring, just to try the wonderful
resources of Number Forty-two, and sure
enough he would produce the articles one by
one. I thought I had caught him once when
I requested to look at a few warming-pans,
and pictured to myself how hugely chap-
fallen he would appear, to be obliged to
confess that he had no such things in his store.
But not a bit of it. He stole away very
placidly into some dismal dark hole of a place,
amongst a whole cavern of bottles and jars,
and just as I pictured him emerging into broad
daylight, dead-beaten, he came upon me
radiant and cheerful as ever, bearing a gigantic
and genuine " warming-pan," apologising
to me, as he removed the coating of dust from
it, for having but that one to offer — it was the
last of his stock. I had it sent home as a
real curiosity, and hung it up in my library
amongst other rare articles of vertu.

There was one peculiarity about my muffin-
capped friend which must not be omitted.
He never made any abatement in the price
demanded for his articles, be they of the latest
importation, or the remains of an invoice