186 DIARY OF A PEDESTRIAN

few shops we went away in disgust. 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
PuncJCa Noah's ark costumes and Bond Street
specimens of fashion. They were dressed in ex-
aggerated 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 addi-
tion 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 Hin-
dostanee, 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 compdss.
The Compdss Wallah in question we found quite
a wild man of the mountains ; his face, from
changes of heat and cold and long exposure, was
burnt and blistered into all sorts of colours, and.
