Nearly all the gold, silver and tin foil used in India is made at Ahmedabad, also in a primitive way, for the metal is spread between sheets of paper and beaten with a heavy hammer.  The town is famous for its pottery also, and for many other manufactured goods.

The artisans are organized into guilds, like those of Europe in ancient times, with rules and regulations as strict as those of modern trades unions.  The nagar-seth, or Lord Mayor, of Ahmedabad, is the titular head of all the guilds, and presides over a central council which has jurisdiction of matters of common interest.  But each of the trades has its own organization and officers.  Membership is hereditary; for in India, as in all oriental countries, it is customary for children to follow the trade or profession of their father.  If an outsider desires to join one of the guilds he is compelled to comply with very rigid regulations and pay a heavy fee.  Some of the guilds are rich, their property having been acquired by fines, fees and legacies, and they loan money to their own members.  A serious crisis confronts the guilds of Ahmedabad in the form of organized capital and labor-saving machinery.  Until a few years ago all of the manufacturing was done in the households by hand work.  Within recent years five cotton factories, representing a capital of more than $2,500,000, have been established, and furnish labor for 3,000 men, women and children.  This innovation was not opposed by the guilds because its products would come into direct competition only with the cotton goods of England, and would give employment to many idle people; but now that silk looms and other machinery are proposed the guilds are becoming alarmed and are asking where the intrusions are likely to stop.

The tombs of Ahmed, and Ganj Bhash, his chaplain, or spiritual adviser, a saintly mortal who admonished him of his sins and kept his feet in the path that leads to paradise, are both delightful, if such an adjective can apply, and are covered with exquisite marble embroidery, almost incredible in its perfection of detail.  It is such as modern sculptors have neither the audacity or the imagination to design nor the skill or patience to execute.  But they are not well kept.  The rozah, or courtyard, in which the great king lies sleeping, surrounded by his wives, his children and other members of his family and his favorite ministers, is not cared for.  It is dirty and dilapidated.

[Illustration:  Huthi Singh’s tomb—­Ahmedabad]

This vision of frozen music, as some one has described it, is a square building with a dome and walls of perforated fretwork in marble as delicate as Jack Frost ever traced upon a window pane.  It is inclosed by a crumbling wall of mud, and can be reached only through a narrow and dirty lane obstructed by piles of rubbish, and the enjoyment of the visitor is sometimes destroyed and always seriously interfered with by the importunities of priests, peddlers and beggars who pursue him for backsheesh.