Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/231

197 work, while they sell their goods in the same open place and way. The tinmen are busily at work with solder and red-hot iron; the blacksmith plies his hammer on the rude anvil, while his assistant blows the bellows, which are merely two inflated skins, pressed and lifted alternately, one by each hand; and the silversmith forms his bracelets, or it may be his gods, with his little portable anvil (which he is ready to carry to your house, if the work is to be done under your eye) stuck into the earth on which he squats while at work. Though their tools are few and rude, they turn out articles of a workmanship astonishingly delicate and beautiful, by the peculiar dexterity with which these rough implements are handled.

The cotton cloths of the Hindu bazaar have, almost down to the present day, been unsurpassed by the products of the mechanical ingenuity and scientific knowledge of European nations, even when aided by the wondrous power of the steam-engine. Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, (when treating of India, tells his countrymen,) that, "The wild trees of that country, bear fleeces as their fruit, surpassing those of sheep in beauty and in excellence; and the Indians use cloth made from Rh