One of the temples of the Jains, the Swamee Narayan, as they call it, on the outskirts of the city, is considered the noblest modern sacred building in all India.  It is a mass of elaborate carving, tessellated marble floors and richly colored decorations, 150 feet long by 100 feet wide, with an overhanging roof supported by eighty columns, and no two of them are alike.  They are masses of carving-figures of men and gods, saints and demons, animals, insects, fishes, trees and flowers, such as are only seen in the delirium of fever, are portrayed with the most exquisite taste and delicacy upon all of the surface exposed.  The courtyard is inclosed by a colonnade of beautifully carved columns, upon which open fifty shrines with pagoda domes about twelve feet high, and in each of them are figures of Tirthankars, or saints of the calendar of the Jains.  The temple is dedicated to Dharmamath, a sort of Jain John the Baptist, whose image, crowned with diamonds and other jewels, sits behind a beautiful gilded screen.

Ahmedabad now has a population of about 130,000.  The ancient walls which inclose it are in excellent preservation and surround an area of about two square miles.  There are twelve arched gateways with heavy teakwood doors studded with long brass spikes as a defense against elephants, which in olden times were taught to batter down such obstructions with their heads.  The commerce of the city has declined of late years, but the people are still famous for objects of taste and ornament, and, according to the experts, their “chopped” gold is “the finest archaic jewelry in India,” almost identical in shape and design with the ornaments represented upon sculptured images in Assyria.  The goldsmiths make all kinds of personal adornments; necklaces, bracelets, anklets, toe, finger, nose and ear rings, girdles and arm-bands of gold, silver, copper and brass, and this jewelry is worn by the women of India as the best of investments.  They turn their money into it instead of patronizing banks.  As Mr. Micawber would have expressed it, they convert their assets into portable property.

The manufacture of gold and silver thread occupies the attention of thousands of people, and hundreds more are engaged in weaving this thread with silk into brocades called “kincobs,” worn by rich Hindus and sold by weight instead of by measure.  They are practically metallic cloth.  The warp, or the threads running one way, is all either gold or silver, while the woof, or those running the other, are of different colored silks, and the patterns are fashioned with great taste and delicacy.  These brocades wear forever, but are very expensive.  A coat such as a rajah or a rich Hindu must wear upon an occasion of ceremony is worth several thousand dollars.  Indeed, rajahs have had robes made at Ahmedabad for which the cloth alone cost $5,000 a yard.  The skill of the wire drawers is amazing.  So great is their delicacy of touch that they can make a thousand yards of silver thread out of a silver dollar; and if you will give one of them a sovereign, in a few moments he will reel off a spool of gold wire as fine as No. 80 cotton, and he does it with the simplest, most primitive of tools.