They Are The
Only Well-Dressed Or Nice-Looking Women Who Drive Or Walk About The
Streets Or Roads.
The lower classes of females in Bombay are the most
unprepossessing people I ever saw.
In Bengal, the saree, though
rather too scanty, is a graceful costume, and at a little distance
appears to be a modest covering. Here it is worn very differently, and
without the slightest attempt at delicacy or grace, the drapery being
in itself insufficient, and rendered more offensive by the method of
its arrangement.
The Parsee women are, generally speaking, of fair complexions, with
small features, and a very sweet expression of countenance; many
of them are exceedingly pretty, and they all dress gracefully and
becomingly. Very respectable females of this class are to be seen
walking about, showing by their conduct that propriety of behaviour
does not consist in seclusion, or the concealment of the face.
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.
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