Bombay is by far the finest city in the East, but it has been
inflated more than any other, and is now undergoing severe
contraction. Its public buildings would do credit to any European
capital. Government concluded to sell the land fronting on the bay,
which had been used as the site of an antiquated fort, and such was
the rage for speculation at the time that five million dollars'
worth of land was disposed of and enough retained to give Bombay a
beautiful little park and a long drive along the beach. Government
took the money and erected on part of the land retained the
magnificent buildings referred to. We met one gentleman who had
bought one hundred thousand dollars' worth of the new lots, for
which he admitted he could not get today more than twenty thousand
dollars. But Bombay is only learning the universal lesson which the
world seems to need to have repeated every ten or twelve years. It
is fortunate that this city is our last in India, because it so far
excels any other. Nowhere else is such oriental richness to be seen.
The colors of the masses as they move rapidly to and fro remind you
of the combinations of the kaleidoscope. The native women of the
lowest order work in gangs, and it is their dress which chiefly
brightens the scene. A dark-green tight-fitting jacket, a magenta
mantle festooned about the body and legs in some very graceful
manner and reaching to the knees, the feet and legs bare to the
knees, a purple veil on the head but thrown back over the
shoulders--this is the dress as well as I can describe it.
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