Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume III.).djvu/90

70 SERAI. the sober and money-making Boras seem to be not often susceptible of.

The men whom we met here to-day were grave, wealthy-looking burghers, travelUng in covered carts, drawn, each of them, by two of the large and handsome Guzer&ttee oxen, and ornamented and equipped in a style which made them by no means inconvenient or inelegant vehicles. One which was destined to receive the Moullah on his arrival, was a sort of miniature coach or palanquin carriage shaped like a coach, with Venetian blinds, and very handsomely painted dark green. The oxen had all bells round their necks, and the harness of many was plated with massive silver ornaments. The Moullah did not arrive so soon as he was expected, otherwise the Serai would have offered the spec- tacle of a curious mixture of creeds ; as it was, we had Mussulmans of three different sects (Omar, Ali, and Hussun) Hindoos of almost every caste from Brahmins to sweepers, divers worshippers of fire, several Portuguese Roman Catholics, an English Bishop and Archdeacon with one lay-member of their sect, a Scottish Presbyterian, and two poor Greeks from Trebizond, who were on a begging journey to redeem their families from slavery. The whole number of lodgers in and about the Serai, probably, did not fall short of 500 persons. What an admirable scene for eastern romance would such an inn as this afford !

April 13. — From Kim Chowkee to the river Taptee is almost fourteen miles, through a coun- try still wild, and ill-cultivated, though, apparentlyj