Page:ER Scidmore--Winter India.djvu/245

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DELHI
223

lures and promises of the toy turban tribe, no important pieces of carved or jeweled jade were seen. To them any green stone was jade, and under that name they brought out serpentine, bowenite, and chloro-melanite—anything soft and easily worked that would look as well. Three generations of one family are no longer employed in carving one jade bowl, as in Mogul times. Art is fleeting now, and the lapidaries want quick sales and as large returns as the tourist's enlightenment permits.

One may handle these Delhi jewels by the hour and not see a flawless stone, a spherical pearl, or any string of pearls matched perfectly in size, shape, skin, or luster; and one moves in and breathes such an atmosphere of jewels in Delhi that he soon regards precious stones as the usual, serious accompaniment of daily life. A prosaic tourist, never given to such weaknesses, soon finds himself hanging and haggling over jewels, buying unset stones and gewgaws to indiscretion. From the earliest breakfast hour to the last home-coming at dusk, and until the train bears him away from the station platform, open jewel-boxes and rows of necklaces spread on cloths or shawl-ends are put before him. Some insinuating Lal This or Lal That, with caste-marked brow and tiny turban, is always salaaming and begging him to buy his blue ferozees (turquoises), or necklaces of the nine lucky stones. A tap at the door, and it opens to show a brown face and a tassel of necklaces swinging from a brown hand; and in time the victim is hypnotized by the glittering objects. There is bitter trade rivalry among the jew-