The people were
a mixture of Cashmeeries, Chinese, Tartars, Bengalees, and Indians of
all sorts and sects, and more idle, good-for-nothing looking scoundrels
I never laid eyes on. One most amusing group of Mahomedan exquisites
reminded one forcibly of PUNCH'S Noah's ark costumes and Bond Street
specimens of fashion. They were dressed in exaggerated turbans and
long white Chogas, or loose coats, which reached down to their heels;
and, as arm in arm, with gentle swagger, they sauntered through the
bazaar, they had, in addition to their heavy swellishness, an air of
Eastern listlessness to which the most exquisite of their European
prototypes could never hope to attain. On reaching our camp we found
another traveller had added his little canvas to the scene; it was
one of the Government Survey, whom the natives invariably designate
by the comprehensive title of "the Compass Wallahs." Wallah is,
in Hindostanee, as nearly as possible an equivalent to "fellow,"
and in explaining the character of this particular order of Wallah,
the accent is always strong on the second syllable of the compass.
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