There Is An Innate Delicacy And Refinement About Parsee Women Which Commands Respect, And Their Value Is Known And Acknowledged By Their Male Relatives, Who Treat Them With A Degree Of Deference And Consideration Which Is Highly Creditable To Both Parties.

Though the men are found in service in every European family, they do not allow their wives and daughters to become domestics to foreigners, and they are only permitted to become servants to their own people.

The higher classes of natives have adopted European equipages, and are the owners of the handsomest carriages and horses in Bombay. Chariots, barouches, britschkas, and buggies, appear in great numbers, filled with Mohamedan, Hindu, or Parsee gentlemen. The less fashionable use the palanquin carriage, common in Bengal, but which at this place is called a shigram; these are often crammed full of servants and children.

Upon emerging from the bazaar, we enter upon the wide plain called the Esplanade. To the left, across an extensive parade-ground, appears the Fort, which is seen to the best advantage from this point; the walls are low, and afford an ample view of a range of three-storied houses, having verandahs all the way up, called Rampart Row, and from which one or two very splendid mansions stand out conspicuously. To the right, there is a whole encampment of tents, these canvas dwellings being the sole refuge for the destitute. They may be hired in any number and of every degree of elegance, none, however, quite reaching to the refinements of Bengal, or being supplied with glass doors and windows. Beyond the tents, and quite close to the beach, is the space allotted for the temporary bungalows erected during the cold season - singular places, which will be more fully described under the head of Anglo-Indian residences. In front, and close to the warf or bunder, are immense irregular piles of cotton in bales, which at a distance appear like fortifications, and upon a nearer approach assume somewhat of a picturesque air.

The Fort is surrounded on the land-side with a moat, and is entered through some very shabby gateways. The interior of this extensive work presents a busy, bustling scene; its numerous houses being arranged with some degree of regularity in streets and open places. Those who content themselves, however, with driving through the European portion, will have very little idea of the true character of the place. Rampart Row - the avenues leading into a large open space, in which stand the cathedral, the town-hall, the mint, a cavalry barrack, &c. - and the immediate environs, are composed of lofty, well-constructed houses, some standing a little apart in courtyards, and others with a narrow platform in front, ascended by steps, and roofed by the story above. This, as I have previously stated, is the general method of building in Bombay. These streets have somewhat of an European, though not an English, air, but are for the most part tenanted by natives, who may be seen at the windows of every floor, and who apparently are better lodged, at least according to our idea, than the same class in Calcutta.

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