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Chapter VI.
In the Female Apartments.
It is well known that in former times Septogram was a city of great wealth. At one time the merchants of every country from Java to Constantinople used to collect in that great city for commerce; but in the tenth or eleventh century of the Bengal era the pristine magnificence of Septogram declined. The principal reason for the decline lay in the fact that the river, which used to wash past the outskirts of the city, had now become a narrow stream, so that ships of large burden could no longer come up to the city. For this reason its extensive trade gradually disappeared. When a commercial city loses its commerce, it loses everything: Septogram lost everything. In the eleventh century
