livery of the supreme authority, and signifies to the native mind that there is one whom the authority of England delights to honor. There was nothing of this in Lucknow. The people are Mussulmans, of the fierce, conquering race, on whom the yoke of England does not rest lightly, who simply scowled and stared, but gave no welcome. Pleasant it was to visit a mission-school, under the charge of American ministers. The clergymen directing the mission received the General and his party at the mission, a spacious old house in the suburbs. The scholars-all femaleswere seated under a tree, and as the General came to the gate they welcomed him by singing "John Brown." The pupils were bright, intelligent children, some of them young ladies. There were English, natives and children of English and native parents. The missionaries spoke of their work hopefully, and seemed enthusiastic over what would seem to be the most difficult of tasks-the education of women in India. Woman has so strange a position in India that if she becomes a Christian her fate is a hard one. The Hindoo gives woman no career beyond the harem, and in the harem, it seems, that nothing would be so much a disadvantage as education. Caste comes in as an insurmountable obstacle.

Benares, the sacred city of the Hindoos, was the next point visited. Says our correspondent:-We were all tired and frowsy and not wide awake when the train shot into Benares station. The English representative of the Viceroy, Mr. Daniells, came on the train and welcomed the General to Benares. Then we descended, and the blare of trumpets, the word of command, with which we have become so familiar, told of the guard of honor. The General and Mrs. Grant, accompanied by the leading military and civic English representatives and native rajahs, walked down the line with uncovered heads. In honor of

the General's coming, the road from the station to the Government House had been illuminated. Poles had been stuck in the ground on either side of the road, and from these poles lanterns and small glass vessels filled with oil were swinging. It was a long drive to the house of the Commissioner, but even this, and the fatigue of one of the severest days we had known in our experience of Indian travel, were recompensed by the grace of our welcome. A part of his house Mr. Daniells gave to General and Mrs. Grant and Mr. Borie. For the others there were tents in the garden. Although it was late, after supper we sat on the veranda for a long time, talking about India, England, and home, fascinated by the marvellous beauty of the night-a beauty that affected you like music.

Benares, the sacred city of the Hindoos, sacred also to the Buddhists, is one of the oldest in the world. Macaulay's description, so familiar to all, is worth reprinting, from the vividness with which it represents it, as we saw it to-day. "Benares," says Macaulay, in his essay on Warren Hastings, "was a city which, in wealth, population, dignity, and sanctity, was among the foremost in Asia. It was commonly believed that half a million human beings were crowded into that labyrinth of lofty alleys, rich with shrines and minarets, and balconies and carved oriels, to which the sacred apes clung by hundreds. The traveller could scarcely make his way through the press of holy mendicants and not less holy bulls. The broad and stately flights of steps which descended from these swarming haunts to the bathing-places along the Ganges were worn every day by the footsteps of an innumerable multitude of worshippers. The schools and temples drew crowds of pious Hindoos from every prov ince where the Brahminical faith was known. Hundreds of devotees came thither every month to die, for it was be

lieved that a peculiarly happy fate awaited the man who should pass from the sacred city into the sacred river. Nor was superstition the only motive which allured strangers to that great metropolis. Commerce had as many pilgrims as religion. All along the shores of the venerable stream lay great fleets of vessels laden with rich merchandise. From the looms of Benares went forth the most delicate silks that adorned the halls of St. James and Versailles; and in the bazaars the muslins of Bengal and the sabres of Oude were mingled with the jewels of Golconda and the shawls of Cashmere."

Benares is the city of priests. Its population, notwithstanding Macaulay's estimate, is less than two hundred thousand. Of this number, from twenty to twenty-five thousand are Brahmins. They govern the city and hold its temples, wells, shrines, and streams. Pilgrims are always arriving and going, and as the day of General Grant's visit fell upon one of the holiest of Indian festivals, we found it crowded with pilgrims. Sometimes as many as two hundred thousand come in the course of a year. They come to die, to find absolution by bathing in the sacred waters of the Ganges. The name comes from a prince named Banar, who once ruled here. The Hindoo name,. Kasi, means "splendid." There is no record of the num-ber of temples. Not long since, one authority counted 1,454 Hindoo temples and 272 Mohammedan mosques. In addition to the temples there are shrines, cavities built in walls containing the image of some god, as sacred as temples. Pious rajahs are always adding to the temples and shrines. It is believed that there are a half million of idols in the city. The effect of the British rule has been to increase the idols and temples, for the law of the British gives protection to all religions, and under this the Hindoo has been able to rebuild the monuments which the

Mohammedan invaders pulled down. Aurungzebe, who flourished at the close of the seventeenth century, and to whom Benares owes a prominent and picturesque mosque, was the chief among the destroyers of images. To Aurungzebe the Hindoos attribute the overthrow of most of the shrines which made Benares famous in other days. Since the Hindoos have been guaranteed the possession of their temples, the work of rebuilding has gone on with increasing zeal. It is noted, however, perhaps as an effect of what Islam did in its days of empire, — that the monuments of the later Hindoo period are small and obscure when compared with what we see in Southern India, where the of the idol breakers never was supreme. The temples are small. The Hindoo, perhaps, has not such a confidence in the perpetuity of British rule as to justify his expressing it in stone. It is not in the nature of the Hindoo to find an expression for his religion in stone. All nature, the seas, the streams,' the hills, the trees, the stars, and even the rocks, are only so many forms of the Supreme existence. Why then attempt to express it in stone?

power

I am afraid Benares is not a savory city. The odors that come from the various temples and court-yards, where curs, priests, beggars, fakirs, calves, monkeys, were all crammed, might have been odors of sanctity to the believers in Vishnu, but to us they were oppressive, and prevented as intelligent and close a study of the religion as some of us might have bestowed. Yet our procession was Oriental. The Commissioner, Mr. Daniells, had provided sedan-chairs for the party. These chairs were heavy, ornamented with gold and brass, mounted on poles, and carried on the shoulders of four bearers.

persons of rank, and the rank is also ing over the head an embroidered silk

They are used by expressed by carryumbrella in gaudy

colors. When we came to the outskirts of the town our

chair-bearers were waiting for us, and the General was told that he might take his place. But the idea of swinging in a gaudy chair from a pole, with attendants before and behind calling upon the people to make way, and a dazzling umbrella over his head decorated with all the colors of the rainbow, was too much for the General. He preferred to walk. Mrs. Grant was put in one chair, and Mr. Borie, whose health is such as to make every little aid in the way of movement welcome, was in another. The General and the rest of the party made their way on foot. We were accompanied by several officers of the British residency, and, as we wound along the alleys from temple to temple, were quite a procession. In the eyes of the population it was a distinguished procession, for the uplifted chairs, richly decorated, the swaying of umbrellas covered with silver and gold, the attendants in the British Government livery—all told that there was among us one whom even the Englishman delighted to honor. Some of these temples were so narrow that even the chair-bearers could not enter, and we made our pilgrimage on foot. You enter a small archway, and come into a court-yard. I should say the court-yard was a hundred feet square. In the centre is a shrine-a canopied shrine. Under this is a god, whichever god happens to.be worshipped. It is generally a hideous stone, without grace or expression. Pilgrims are around it, in supplication, and as they pray they put offerings on the altar before the idol. These offerings are according to the means of the devotee, but most of those I saw were flowers. Hindoo urchins come up to you and put garlands of flowers about your neck. This is an act of grace and welcome, but you are expected to give money. In front of the idol, sitting on his feet, is the Brahmin reading the Vedas. You know the Brahmin by the sacred thread which he wears on his shoulder, and by the marks of his