India 2001 books

Governor Petrovitch met us on the quay.
He was a fine-featured old man dressed in all the barbaric splendour of
a full national costume, pale green long-skirted coat, red gold
embroidered waistcoat, and baggy dark blue knee breeches with a huge
amount of waste material in the seat. He kissed his daughter and greeted
us genially. We clambered into the usual dilapidated cab with the usual
dilapidated horses, and off to the hotel.
The women on the roadside were clad in picturesque ever-varying
costumes. There were narrow carts with high Indian-like wheels studded
with large nails; there were Albanians in costumes of black and white,
everything we had hoped or expected.
[Illustration]


CHAPTER IX
SCUTARI

After a wash we went into the streets. It was the Orient, just as
Eastern as Colombo or Port Said. The little fruit and jewellers' shops
with square lanterns, the tailors sitting cross-legged in their windows,
the strange medley of costumes--even the long lean dogs looked as if
they had been kicked from the doors of a thousand mosques.


Pages:
107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131