Harper's Bazaar

“ All sorts of things are incorporated in this bazaar: old dwelling-houses; columns of old temples; stairways beginning anywhere, leading nowhere; mosques—the limitless roof of merchandise has stretched out and enveloped these things. To attempt a detailed description of the place would be unwisdom. One may only generalize this vast hive of tiny tradesmen and tiny trades. All the curious merchants and wares we have seen pictured for a lifetime are gathered here. It is indeed the Grande Bazaar—the emporium of the East. ”

“ He importunes the passers-by to purchase, and it is not always prudent to stop and examine the goods, unless one wishes to be dragged into the shop. The bazaar itself has outgrown the building, large as it is, and extends into the neighboring streets; indeed, the whole territory in the rear, and to the eastward of it for a considerable distance, is appropriated to its uses. ”

“ It is not the ordinary way; but instead of passing by the broad European thoroughfare, Park street, we shall turn aside into the dark and winding passages of an Indian bazaar. A bazaar is a multitude of lanes, exclusively composed of miserable huts, and blocked up with all sorts of merchandise. You rarely meet any one there but men; the shop-girl and the "young lady" of the store are equally unknown here; but in it is found every form of misery.
See there below that beggar of eighteen or twenty years, scarce half covered, and without even a rudiment, a shadow, of an arm. ”

“ But it isn't the European shops, good as they are, that occupy our mornings. Much more fascinating haunts await us, the New Market and the China Bazaar. The former is a kind of arcade which contains everything that any reasonable person could require; fragrant fruit and flowers, fresh-smelling vegetables, and the wares of butcher and baker and candlestick-maker, all laid out on booths and stalls for the world to choose from. ”

“ Sometimes three or four persons will crowd into this box called a shop. The bazaar is a noisy as well as a crowded place, for to the buzz of talk and the cries of the itinerant venders is added the clang of the goldsmiths' hammers; it winds down into the recesses of decaying houses and emerges in another direction. ”

“ Every shop removes its shutters in the morning, and as there are usually no windows, the effect is that of moving through an immense bazaar, in which every known trade is being carried on, while the wares are being sold at an adjoining counter. ”

“ But the native is the joy, and the never-ceasing delight. For his benefit is the wide, glittering, colourful, insanitary bazaar, with its dozens of little open-air veranda shops, its "hotels" where he can sit in a real chair and drink real tea, its cafes, and the dark mysteries of its more doubtful amusements. The bazaar is right in the middle of town, just where it ought not to be, and it is constantly being quarantined, and threatened with removal. ”

“ But it owns a real bazaar and a large market-place. The bazaar is winding and irregular, shaded here and there by coarse canvas, or matting, stretched on ropes and bars of wood. Canvas of every shade of brown and ochre hangs flapping idly in the breeze over the square, cavernous shops, where, amongst strange, untempting wares, the owners sit motionless, only their eyes awake and on the watch. In other shops men work tirelessly at many trades. Colour exists only in the vividly blue sky, in the palms, and in a few scarlet handkerchiefs. ”

“ The place is crowded with people all the time, and as the gay-colored Eastern fabrics are lavishly displayed before every shop, the great Bazaar of Stamboul is one of the sights that are worth seeing. It is full of life, and stir, and business, dirt, beggars, asses, yelling peddlers, porters, dervishes, high-born Turkish female shoppers, Greeks, and weird-looking and weirdly dressed Mohammedans from the mountains and the far provinces—and the only solitary thing one does not smell when he is in the Great Bazaar, is something which smells good. ”

“ Then some of the shops display things that one does not see at all at home, such as the glass lamps for hanging in the mosques and Greek churches. Nor is it the things for sale alone which make the Bazaar so wonderful a sight. The buyers and sellers are at least as picturesque as what they sell and buy. ”

“ This is rather the oldest and narrowest part of the bazaar, and the light of heaven meets with the additional interruption of two rows of pillars with arched friezes standing in the middle of the street. On entering the literary twilight of the passage in the rear of these columns, the classic nostril detects instantly the genuine odour of manuscript, black-letter, and ancient binding; and the trained eye, accustomed to the dim niches of libraries, wanders over the well-piled shelves with their quaint rows of volumes in vellum, and appreciates at once their varied riches. ”

“ Each kind of business, or trade, has its own bazaar. There is a shoemaker’s bazaar where scores of cobblers are working. At the entrance to each cavelike shop two shoemakers sit sewing away with untanned calfskin aprons tight about them. Between them on a block of wood, an olive tree stump it may be, rests a slab of white marble. ”

“ The whole vicinity acquires the look and stir of a bazaar. Baskets and paper parcels and travelling-bags are conspicuous and general. Perhaps you find yourself on the greasy edge of some huge market. The hacks accumulate like croton-bugs about a kitchen sink. ”

“ If you like, you may visit the bazaar where old clothes are sold, and if you have a fancy for garments that have done duty on Moslem backs, your desires can be met with the utmost ease. And don’t fail to come to the bazaars on Mondays and Thursdays, and witness the sale of goods at auction. It is not like an American auction, where the dealer stands in one place and has the buyers clustering round him. ”

“ The Bazaar is also an immense pile of building, three storeys high, comprising 5,228 shops, connected by an endless number of passages and steps. In these courts and galleries there is a continual fair throughout the year, attended by traders from every part of Europe, Siberia, China, and Tartary, numbering upwards of 1,000 merchants, all eager and very importunate to do business.
In the same neighbourhood are many streets of shops, arranged in masses, perhaps thirty shops for paper, [Pg 32] another range for spices, a third for ornamental articles, and a fourth for pictures and saints. ”

“ Here he gets his first glimpse of that great feature of Indian life, the bazaar—rows and rows of narrow streets filled with shops and crowds. The shops are small booths, often built of mud, or archways, or, again, are mere holes in a wall. Everything is open to full view; there are neither windows nor doors. The merchant or shopkeeper squats beside his goods; the artisan does his work in sight of the passers-by. The crowds are stranger than the shops. ”

“ The bazaars are of all sorts: the leather-sellers have one, the carpet-dealers another, silk-merchants another, and everywhere purchaser and buyer seem to spend a great deal of time in smoking cigarettes. The gold bazaar is so narrow that three persons can scarcely pass; there, and at the silver bazaar, you see the artificers constantly at work. Coptic churches and mosques you meet everywhere. There is a good attendance at the English Church; there are also a Presbyterian Church, and two Roman Catholic churches. ”

“ The Grand Bazaar is both a sight and a town in itself, full of streets, entries, lanes and alleys, covered here and there as an arcade, into which the sun never penetrates. The dim light, the great crowds of strangely costumed people,—veiled women with their children in hand, attended by eunuchs, some chattering, some silent and aloof—but all intent on bargaining and eager for the fray. ”

“ These I believe are the children of the shopkeepers, and you are expected to toss them a copper for the pleasure of being swindled by their father. These gamins of the bazaar are an amusing race. Stunted, bright-eyed, and unboundedly quick and bitter of tongue, they have neither fear nor respect for their seniors. ”

“ In his new raiment he approached the city, and near the great gate he found a bazaar where, amongst many shops filled with costly silks, and carpets, and goods of all countries, was one finer than all the rest. ”

“ The older women and men exposed for sale in the bazaar, of the towns above named, are mostly such as are resold by their masters for some particular defect, and it is by no means, therefore, advisable to purchase them. ”

“ If the owner wishes to go away in the day time he spreads a net in front during his absence, and this is his card to say he is “out.” The merchant does not press you to buy, and he generally seems not to care whether you buy or not.
In the slipper bazaar you pass shop after shop where Oriental slippers of all patterns and values are sold; in the tailors’ bazaar you find shop after shop where tailors are at work upon Oriental garments, and so you go on through one bazaar after another. ”

“ She desired to wed a merchant, with a shop of his own, having a little room upstairs over the bazaar so that the good wife might be able to run down and attend to customers between domestic duties. She declared an antique shop would be the best, for one can buy nowadays from the wholesalers such wonderful, not-to-be-detected imitations. ”

“ This is especially true of the main bazaar, which is a winding arcade half a mile long, roofed and lined with shops, thronged with men. One sees far fewer women than in India, and those mostly veiled and in black, while the men wear long robes and cloakes and scarves on their heads bound with coils of wool worn garland-wise, as one sees in Biblical pictures. They seem friendly, or rather wholly indifferent to one, and I felt at times I might be invisible and watching an Arabian Nights' story for all the notice they took of me. ”

“ What is a bazaar in India? It is, first of all, the quarter where the shopkeepers are gathered together, where the tiny shops stand in close-packed rows on either side of the narrow ways, and whither all who have money flock to spend it. But it is more than that. It is the place to which those who have no money resort just as freely, for here ebbs and flows in one unending flood the news, the rumours, the gossip of the town and country. ”

“ It is neither a shop devoted to one limited branch of trade, nor a warehouse implying the same branch carried out on a greater scale, nor is it a bazaar where many different owners offer goods of various kinds within the same walls. ”

“ On the north is the portico of the palace of the RAI. Above each bazaar is a lofty arcade with a magnificent gallery, but the audience-hall of the king's palace is elevated above all the rest. The bazaars are extremely long and broad. [135]
"Roses are sold everywhere. These people could not live without roses, and they look upon them as quite as necessary as food.... Each class of men belonging to each profession has shops contiguous the one to the other; the jewellers sell publicly in the bazaars pearls, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. ”

“ There are bazaars where they sell pipes of all kinds, and where you buy all kinds of tin-ware. There are book bazaars, seed bazaars, glass bazaars, and so on through a long list. And there is a second-hand bazaar, where you can buy anything from a set of false teeth to a suit of clothes. It is a wonderful mass of stuff, not altogether inviting; as you walk around, you have suspicions of plague, cholera, and other diseases of the Orient, and are not altogether sorry to get away. ”

“ Watchful touts with keen eyes lie in wait for the unwary, whom they inveigle into the shops, whilst in a high-handed fashion they order about the real owner, who meekly obeys their orders. They pretend to bargain, but really raise the prices, which are preposterous even for the East, and of course pocket a large percentage themselves. However, they are very quick, and never forget a face, so that it is only the casual visitor who suffers. After a day or two one is free of the bazaar, and begins to have many kindly acquaintances. ”

“ The European order is here completely reversed, for the shopkeeper sits whilst the purchasers are compelled to stand. The bazaar merchant is seated on the floor of his dukhaun, near enough to the open front to enable him to transact business with his customers, who, one and all, stand in the street to examine the goods and to be served; let the weather be bad or good, none are admitted within the threshold of the dukhaun. In most places the shops are small, and look crowded with the articles for sale, and those where manufactories are carried on have not space to spare to their customers. ”

“ It is a weird, wonderful place, that bazaar. It covers an endless space, if one may judge from its labyrinthine interior. Everywhere they stretch away, the dim arcades, flimsily roofed with glass and matting and bark, fading into vague Oriental vistas of flitting figures and magic outlines. ”

“ They have a small commission on the price of everything sold, and assuredly they earn their wage. In contrast with the attitudes of both shopkeepers and auctioneers, the general public is inclined to regard the bazaar as a place of entertainment. Beggar lads, whose scanty rags constitute their sole possession, chaff the excited dilals, keeping carefully out of harm's way the while. Three-fourths of the people present are there to idle the afternoon hours, with no intention of making a purchase unless some unexpected bargain crosses their path. ”