Three score book-makers howl their bargains in raucous tones, and a whirlwind of rupee paper passes to the strong boxes. The crowd is backing the favorites. Even the Arab horse dealers from the Bhendi bazaar, manly fellows in the garb of desert sheikhs, whose pockets bulge with rolls of notes, comprehend the book-makers' jargon of English that might be incomprehensible to an Oxford don. A prince who is heir to the rulership of one of the greatest states in India has no scruples against inviting an expression of opinion as to so-and-so's bay filly of a native sportsman with beard dyed red with henna, in keeping with the fashion of his kind. Escorted ladies of position, and unescorted women in pairs from Grant Road, are present before the betting booths. Fair Parsee ladies, wearing clinging robes of delicate shades, wait patiently while their swains place their money on the impending event.
A bell rings loudly—the horses are at the post. The mob rushes from the betting ring to the lawn; only few take the trouble to climb to their seats. It is a quick race. The crowd of standees in the inner field see it best, and down this mighty nondescript body is echoed the cry "Kedge Anchor!" Sure enough, "Kedge Anchor," an unknown from Australia, ridden by a jockey of obscure past, wins the great race. Three favorites are ingloriously beaten. Up go the numbers. All is over in less than two minutes—and the crowd goes pell-mell back to the book-makers' enclosure, hoping for better luck over the next race on the card. If rupees were dollars, the financial aspect of a Bombay racing day would be important.
Kipling wrote true when he called Bombay "India's Queen City." It lacks the depressing influences of Calcutta, as well as the odors. Indeed, it is one of the handsomest cities of the whole British Empire, and has more notable buildings than Manchester or Edinburgh. True, its stately piles blend the Gothic and Indian schools of architecture, but otherwise there is nothing Eastern about Bombay—save its people. A man awakening from long slumber on a ship anchored off the Apollo Bunder would willingly swear he beheld a European town. Eight tenths of India's visitors arrive and depart from Bombay.
The opening of the Suez Canal made certain the importance of Bombay as a trade center. It is now the largest cotton port in the world next to New Orleans, and if plague and smallpox might be controlled for five years it would have a population of a million. Bombay is a comparatively modern city, as cities count in immemorial India. England secured Bombay in 1661, not by conquest, but as a portion of the marriage dowry of Catharine of Braganza of Portugal, when she became the queen of Charles II.
The world's most artistic railway station—not the largest, nor costliest—is in Bombay, and the best marble statue in existence of Queen Victoria was presented to the Bombay municipality by His Highness the Gaekwar of Baroda. Another notable gift is the bronze statue of Edward VII, donated by Sir Albert Sassoon, son of a public-spirited banker from Baghdad, who took up his residence in Bombay. A newcomer among the city's office buildings is "Roosevelt House," advantageously situated near the Apollo Bunder.
The eyes of the person recently arrived from Europe or America behold many strange and amusing sights in the streets of Bombay, and for days your local guide and the obliging porter at the hotel is kept busy the livelong day answering questions. The native policeman is a human institution who explains himself. It is averred that he is loyal and efficient, but with his calfless legs bared to the knee and feet shod in sandals, he looks a queer cousin of Fifth Avenue's "Finest" and of the "Bobby" of London. A person unaccustomed to the habits of subject races gets the idea that the Bombay constable's first duty is the touching of his cap to white men, all and sundry; but it is said to his credit that in a street brawl or a water front quarrel among drunken lascars he fights like a wildcat. He is extremely proud of his truncheon, for it is a badge of office tremendously respected in the city's labyrinths where India's heterogeneous peoples dwell a dozen or more in a room. During the wet monsoon the policeman of Bombay carries an umbrella supplied by the municipality, which heightens his comical aspect—but it keeps him dry.
BOMBAY POLICEMAN
The markings and badges of caste observed in Bombay streets lead you to a constant interrogation of your sources of information. At the outset you determine to obtain an understanding of the institution of Indian caste, but a fortnight after your arrival in Bombay you conclude that the task is too great for anybody having other things to do, and give it up in despair. A few facts connected with this supreme and dominating characteristic take root in your memory, however, and you have learned that the customs and rites of caste could not be strengthened even by legal enactments, or by the massed strength of all the armies on earth. The word is derived from the Latin word castus, implying purity of blood, and whose essential principle is marriage. India's population groups forty-seven nationalities, divided into 2,378 recognized castes and tribes. Accident of birth determines irrevocably a native's