for his day’s attention, as many thousands of rupees may have passed under his critical eye for examination, it being a common practice, both with shopkeepers and individuals, to send their rupees to the shroff for his inspection, always fearing imposition from the passers of base coin.  These shroffs transact remittances to any part of India by hoondies,[10] which are equivalent to our bills of exchange, and on which the usual demand is two and a half per cent at ninety days, if required for any distant station.

The European order is here completely reversed, for the shopkeeper sits whilst the purchasers are compelled to stand.  The bazaar merchant is seated on the floor of his dukhaun, near enough to the open front to enable him to transact business with his customers, who, one and all, stand in the street to examine the goods and to be served; let the weather be bad or good, none are admitted within the threshold of the dukhaun.  In most places the shops are small, and look crowded with the articles for sale, and those where manufactories are carried on have not space to spare to their customers.

Very few gentlemen condescend to make their own purchases; they generally employ their confidential domestic to go to market for them; and with the ladies their women servants are deputed.  In rich families it is an office of great trust, as they expend large sums and might be much imposed upon were their servants faithless.  The servants always claim dustoor[11] (custom) from the shopkeepers, of one pice for every rupee they lay out; and when the merchants are sent for to the houses with their goods, the principal servant in the family is sure to exact his dustoor from the merchant; and this is often produced only after a war of words between the crafty and the thrifty.

The diversity of cries from those who hawk about their goods and wares in streets and roadways, is a feature in the general economy of the Natives not to be overlooked in my brief description of their habits.  The following list of daily announcements by the several sonorous claimants on the public attention, may not be unacceptable with their translated accompaniments.

’Seepie wallah deelie sukha’[12] (Moist or dry cuppers).—­Moist and dry cupping is performed both by men and women; the latter are most in request.  They carry their instruments about with them, and traverse all parts of the city.  The dry cupping is effected by a buffalo’s horn and resorted to by patients suffering under rheumatic pains, and often in cases of fever, when to lose blood is either inconvenient on account of the moon’s age, or not desirable by reason of the complaint or constitution of the patient.

’Jonk, or keerah luggarny wallie’[13] (The woman with leeches).—­Women with leeches attend to apply the required remedy, and are allowed to take away the leeches after they have done their office.  These women by a particular pressure on the leech oblige it to disgorge the blood, when they immediately place it in fresh water; by this practice the leeches continue healthy, and may be brought to use again the following day if required.