Intercourse between India and the Western World from the Earliest Times to the Fall of Rome c9.44

c9.44

adorned with hundreds of alms halls of various kinds, and splendid with hundreds of thousands of magnificent mansions which rise aloft like the peaks of the Himalayas. Its streets are filled with elephants, horses, carriages, and foot-passengers and crowded by men of all sorts and conditions,—Brahmins, nobles, artificers and servants. They resound with cries of welcome to teachers of every creed, and the city is the resort of leading men of each of the different sects. Shops are there for the sale of Benares muslin, of Kotumbara stuffs, and of other cloths of various kinds; and sweet odours are exhaled from the bazaars where all sorts of flowers and perfumes are tastefully set out. Jewels are there in plenty and guilds of traders in all sorts of finery display their goods in the bazaars which face all quarters of the sky."