The streets abound with these blind beggars, who are seldom treated with indignity. A kindly indulgence is extended to them, and they enjoy a prescriptive right of levying a copper cash from every shop or house they enter. It is said that this furnishes a liberal means of livelihood to an immense number of blind persons, who in many instances are banded together in companies or societies, subject to a code of rules, on breach of which the transgressor is expelled the community.

In every little open space there are crowds of travelling doctors, haranguing the multitude on the wonderful powers and healing virtues of the medicines which they expose for sale. Close by, some cunning fortune-teller may be seen, with crafty look, explaining to some awe-stricken simpleton his destiny in life, from a number of books arranged before him, and consulted with due solemnity. In another part some tame birds are exhibiting their clever feats, in singling out, from amongst a hundred others, a piece of paper enclosing a coin, and then receiving a grain of millet as a reward of their cleverness.