The principal business section, called Chandni Chauk, which means Silver street, has been frequently described as one of the most picturesque and fascinating streets in the world.  It is about a mile long and seventy-five feet broad.  In the center are two rows of trees, between which for several hundred years was an aqueduct, but it is now filled and its banks are used as a pathway, the principal promenade of the town.  But a stranger cannot walk there in peace, for within five minutes he is hemmed in and his way is blocked by merchants, who rush out from the shops on both sides with their hands filled with samples of goods and business cards and in pigeon English entreat him to stop and see what they have for sale.  Sometimes it is amusing when rival merchants grapple with each other in their frantic efforts to secure customers, but such unwelcome attentions impair the pleasure of a visit to Delhi.

The shops on both sides of the Chandni Chauk are full of wonderful loom and metal work, jewelry, embroidery, enamel, rugs, hangings, brocades, shawls, leather work, gems and carved ivory and wood.  Delhi has always been famous for carvings, and examples of engraving on jade of priceless value are often shown.  Sometimes a piece of jade can be found in a curio shop covered with relief work which represents the labor of an accomplished artist for years.  In the days of the Moguls these useless ornaments were very highly regarded.  Kings and rich nobles used to have engravers attached to their households.  Artists and their families were always sure of a comfortable home and good living, hence time was no object.  It was not taken into consideration.  They were indifferent whether they spent five months or five years in fashioning a block of ivory or engraving a gem for their princely patrons.  The greatest works of the most accomplished artists of the Mogul period are now nearly all in the possession of native princes and rich Hindus, and if one comes into the market it is snapped up instantly by collectors in Europe and the United States.  Some of the carved ivory is marvelous.  An artist would spend his entire life covering a tusk of an elephant with carvings of marvelous delicacy and skill; and even to-day the ivory carvers of Delhi produce wonderful results and sell them at prices that are absurdly small, considering the labor they represent.

Akbar the Great, who sat upon the Mogul throne the latter half of the sixteenth century, was a sensible man, and endeavored to direct the skill and taste of the artisans of his empire into more practical channels.  Instead of maintaining artists to carve ivory and jade he established schools and workshops for the instruction of spinners, weavers and embroiderers, and offered high prices for fine samples of shawls and other woolen fabrics, weapons, pottery and similar useful articles.  He purchased the rich products of the looms for the imperial wardrobe and induced the native princes to imitate his example.  He organized guilds among his workmen, and secured the adoption of regulations which served to maintain a high standard, and permitted none but perfect products to be placed upon the market.