s, and if you
would ask the question in Cashmere any merchant would give you
the names of the most celebrated weavers and embroiderers. Queen
Victoria was their most regular and generous patron. She not
only purchased large numbers of shawls herself, but did her best
to bring them into fashion, both because she believed it was a
sensible practice, and would advance the prosperity of the heathen
subjects in whom she took such a deep interest.

The arts and industries of India are very old. Their methods
have been handed down from generation to generation, because
sons are in the habit of following the trades of fathers, and
they are inclined to cling to the same old patterns and the same
old processes, regardless of labor-saving devices and modern
fashions. Many people think this habit should be encouraged;
that what may be termed the classic designs of the Hindus cannot
be improved upon, and it is certainly true that all purely modern
work is inferior. Lord and Lady Curzon have shown deep interest
in this subject. Lord Curzon has used his official authority and
the influence of the government to revive, restore and promote
old native industries, and Lady Curzon has been an invaluable
commercial agent for the manufacturers of the higher class of
fabrics and art objects in India. She has made many of them
fashionable in Calcutta and other Indian cities and in London,
Paris and the capitals of Europe, and so great is her zeal that,
with all her cares and responsibilities, and the demands upon
her time, she always has the leisure to place orders for her
friends and even for strangers who address her, and to assist
the silk weavers, embroiderers and other artists to adapt their
designs and patterns and fabrics to the requirements of modern
fashions. She wears nothing but Indian stuffs herself, and there
is no better dressed woman in the world. She keeps several of
the best artists in India busy with orders from her friends, and
is beginning to see the results of her efforts in the revival
of arts that were almost forgotten.

The population of Delhi is about 208,000. The majority of the
people, as in the other cities of northwestern India, are
Mohammedans, descendants of the invaders of the middle ages, and
the hostility between them and the Brahmins is quite sharp. The
city is surrounded by a lofty wall six miles in circumference,
which was built by Shah Jehan, the greatest of the Moguls, some
time about 1630, and the m