Page:Malabari, Behramji M. - Gujarat and the Gujaratis (1882).djvu/70

54 stereotyped good-wishes to His Highness, the beginning and, in fact, the gist of which I translate verbatim et literatim for the reader:—"May you bathe in milk, and may you (the future Ráni, that is) bring forth sons." Thus ended the Durbár of 1878.

From prince to people is a natural transition.The capital of the Guicowars has a population of two lakhs of folk, consisting of men, women, and children, with a thick sprinkling of Páhriá, dogs. The men may be divided into two classes—the snobbish and the sheepish. The former perpetually chew pán supári, wear huge turbans, and drive about in the tiniest carriages dragged along by wee little bullocks, an inch or so smaller in size than our Bombay goats. The more bloated the face, and the smaller the carriage and bullock, the readier is room made for the owner by the awe-struck pedestrian. Women may be divided into three classes—wives, widows,and prudes; the first rule their husbands, the second rule their shops, the third may have been intended to scare away the small boys and dogs, and generally go about veiled and without shoes.