tly be men, as will
also the large rice-merchants, but nearly all the rest are women.

You will find the sellers of spices, fruit, vegetables, and other such
matters seated in long rows, on mats placed upon the ground. Each will
have a square of space allotted, perhaps six feet square, and there she
will sit with her merchandise in a basket or baskets before her. For
each square they will pay the lessee a halfpenny for the day, which is
only three hours or so. The time to go is in the morning from six till
eight, for that is the busy time. Later on all the stalls will be
closed, but in the early morning the market is thronged. Every
householder is then buying his or her provisions for the day, and the
people crowd in thousands round the sellers. Everyone is bargaining and
chaffing and laughing, both buyers and sellers; but both are very keen,
too, on business.

The cloth and silk sellers, the large rice-merchants, and a few other
traders, cannot carry on business sitting on a mat, nor can they carry
their wares to and fro every day in a basket. For such there are
separate buildings or separate aisles, with wooden stalls, on either
side of a gangway. The wooden floor of the stalls is raised two to three
feet, so that the buyer, standing on the ground, is about on a level
with the seller sitting in the stall. The stall will be about eight feet
by ten, and each has at the back a strong lock-up cupboard or wardrobe,
where the wares are shut at night; but in the day they will be taken out
and arranged daintily about the girl-seller. Home-made silks are the
staple--silks in checks of pink and white, of yellow and orange, of
indigo and dark red. Some are embroidered in silk, in silver, or in
gold; some are plain. All are thick and rich, none are glazed, and none
are gaudy. There will also be silks from Bangkok, which are of two
colours--purple shot with red, and orange shot with red, both very
beautiful. All the silks are woven the size of the dress: for men, about
twenty-eight feet long and twenty inches broad; and for women, about
five feet long and much broader. Thus, there is no cutting off the
piece. The _anas_, too, which are the bottom pieces for a woman's dress,
are woven the proper size. There will probably, too, be piles of showy
cambric jackets and gauzy silk handkerchiefs; but often these are sold
at separate stalls.

But prettier than the silks are the sellers, for these are nearly all
girls and women, sweet an