Just behind me on a green spot in
the park a dozen or more Mohammedans lie prostrate, their foreheads
touching the ground, repeating their prayers; and if it happens to be at
the setting of the sun hundreds of people are seen in the streets,
shops, hotel corridors, or wherever they happen to be, turning their
faces toward the holy city Mecca, reverently kneeling and saying their
evening prayers.

Here on the side-walk, close by me, sits a money-changer and broker. He
has a box filled with coins of almost every kind and description; he
buys and sells gold and silver of other countries, such as are not
current in Calcutta, loans money on jewelry and other valuables, and
does a general banking business on a very small scale. There comes a
peddler,--more of them. Now they are crowding in by the hundred, selling
canes, parasols, embroideries, watches, jewelry, and trinkets of every
description, following the foot passengers, running beside the carriages
going at full speed, sticking their goods through the windows and
imploring the occupants to buy.

Going around to the more quiet side of the square, I find a professional
writer squatted on the side-walk. He has a bundle of dry palm leaves,
and a customer of the lowest Hindoo classes stands before him stating
what message he wishes to send to his wife and relatives in the country.
With a sharp steel instrument the writer inscribes some strange Bengal
letters on the palm leaf, folds it up into a little package which is
sent by a traveling neighbor, or, perhaps, by a swift messenger, to the
dear one in the humble cottage which stands somewhere out on the plain
among the rice fields.

A little further on sits a native barber, also on the side-walk.[5]
Instead of a barber's chair he has a common-sized brick. The man who is
to be shaved squats down opposite the barber; if the customer is the
shorter of the two the brick is put under his feet, but if he is taller
the barber puts the brick under his own feet, in order that they may be
on a perfect level before the operation begins. A Hindoo barber not
only shaves and cuts the hair, but also cleans the nails and ears and
does other toilet work.

[Footnote 5: The Hindoos never sit as we do, but squat on the ground and
rest the weight of the body on the heels.]

[Illustration: HINDOO BARBER.]

There I see two stately men walking arm in arm; they have fine cut, very
regular features, and beautiful black hair and beard; their in