Fishwomen in the decaying Sobha Bazar market are selling—lamps in hand—their stores of putrid fish and salted hilsa, and coaxing purchasers by calling out, “You fellow with the napkin on your shoulder, will you buy some fine fish?” “You fellow with a moustache like a broom, will you pay four annas?” Some one, anxious to display his gallantry, is rewarded by hearing something unpleasant of his ancestors. Smokers of madat and ganjah, and drunkards who have drunk their last pice, are bawling out, “Generous men, pity a poor blind Brahman,” and so procure the wherewithal for a new debauch. * * * * * It is the evening of the Níla, and a Saturday, and the city is unusually crowded. Hanging lanterns and wall-lamps shed their light in the betel shops. The air is full of the scent of the flowers hawked about the streets. In some houses over the street, lessons are being given in dancing, and passers-by stand open-mouthed below enjoying the tinkling music. On one side a fight is going on. A constable has caught a thief and is dragging him away with his hands tied; other thieves are laughing and enjoying the fun, and blessing their stars for their own good luck, quite forgetting that their turn will come some other day.’
In the morning the scene is changed:—
‘Ding-dong, ding-dong, sounds the clock in the Church. It is four in the morning, and night-wandering Babus have turned their faces homewards. Oorya Brahmans are at work on the flour-mills. Street-lamps are growing faint. Light breezes are blowing. Quails are singing in the verandas of the night-houses. But for this, or when the crows begin to caw, or a street dog occasionally barks for want of something else to do, the city is still silent. By-and-by you see groups of women going to the riverside to bathe, and discussing among themselves the fact that Ram’s mother cannot walk, that the fourth daughter-in-law in another house is a shrew, and that another woman is hideous. Butchers from Chitpore are coming in with loads of mutton. Police sergeants, darogahs and jemadars, and other specimens of the ‘terror of the poor’, who have finished their rounds, are walking back to their stations with sounding steps, their girdles and pockets filled with rupees, small silver and pice. They are not too proud to accept a bit of fuel, a chillum of tobacco, or a roll of pan. Some are coming back angry with the city because it has disappointed their hopes, and are busy revolving in their minds the best means of making some rich man feel their dignity and power. ‘Loud booms the morning gun. The crows are cawing noisily, and leaving their nightly shelter. Shopkeepers open their shutters, bow before Gandheswari, sprinkle Ganges water on the floor, change the water in their hookas and begin to smoke. Gradually day dawns. Fishermen are hurrying along with baskets of fish. Fisherwomen are quarrelling and running after them. Baskets of potatoes and brinjals from Baidyabati are coming in. The messengers of death, foreign and native, are starting in their round of visits in gari or palki,
