Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/89

 it is very curiously situated in the heart of the city. Only imagine how narrow the street is which leads up to it; as I sat in my palanquin, I could touch both the sides of the street by stretching my arms out, which I did to assure myself of its extreme narrowness. All the houses in this street are five or six stories high. We stopped at the house of the Bā'ī; it is six stories high, and was bought by her Highness as a place in which to secure her treasure. It is difficult to describe a regular Hindoo house such as this; which consists of four walls, within and around which the rooms are built story above story; but from the foundation to the top of the house there is a square in the centre left open, so that the house encloses a small square court open to the sky above, around which the rooms are built with projecting platforms, on which the women may sit, and eat the air, as the natives call it, within the walls of their residence. I clambered up the narrow and deep stone stairs, story after story, until I arrived at the top of the house; the view from which was unique: several houses in the neighbourhood appeared much higher than the one on which I was standing, which was six stories high. The Mahratta, who did the honours on the part of her Highness, took me into one of the rooms, and showed me the two chests of cast iron, which formerly contained about eighteen thousand gold mohurs. The Government took that money from the Bā'ī by force, and put it into their treasury. Her Highness refused to give up the keys, and also refused her sanction to the removal of the money from her house; the locks of the iron chests were driven in, and the tops broken open; the rupees were in bags in the room; the total of the money removed amounted to thirty-seven lākh. Another room was full of copper coins; another of cowries; the latter will become mouldy and fall into dust in the course of time. One of the gentlemen of the party went over the house with me, and saw what I have described. Atr and pān were presented, after which we took our leave and proceeded to the market-place. The braziers' shops were open, but they refused to sell any thing, it being one of the holidays on which no worker in brass is allowed to sell goods.