500 broad. It is an octagon in form, each side being about 60 feet long, with four minárs (minarets) and a noble dome. The Chubootra, or platform, which supports it, is an artificial island, about 200 feet square, and faced with stone toward the water. It was formerly connected with the land by a stone bridge, but this has now nearly gone to ruin. The building is still very handsome, but when painted and gilded, as at first, must have been gorgeous in the glaring sun.

On the way back from the mosques to the dâk-bungalow, I saw a dancing cow, which I told them to make perform for me; but they said she was too young and not sufficiently trained to amuse so great a lord as I. We passed through the village bazár, and here I noticed for the first time, the women covering their faces as I passed, a custom introduced by the Moosulmans, which does not obtain in lower Bengal, and is not universal anywhere in India. In this place too, I noticed some signs of a greater variety in dress, the rich green, red and yellow muslins of Hindoostan being intermingled with the universal white of Bengal. I met also one or two tall, wild-looking fellows, wrapped in shaggy blankets, with a bright coloured turban and long spear-a species of animal which is not seen further down the country.

The village of Sahussuram, though the largest I had seen, is after all only a village, the houses being all of one story, and mere sheds, built of mud. At the doors of these dwellings the inhabitants were squatted industriously engaged in smoking the hookah. On the outskirts of the village were one or two larger houses, built of stone-the residence of the zěmindar, and a few others who were comfortably off.

On my return to the dâk-bungalow, I was accosted by the zěmindar of the village, a mild-looking young Moosulman, who asked permission to come in and see me. This being granted, he sat down while I breakfasted. It soon came out that his object was to practise his English upon me. He presented me with his card in Persian, and I gave him mine in English, and we kept up quite a conversation on the propriety of Moosulmans eating with Christians, which they refuse to do in India. He afterwards began begging for books, papers, &c.,

and offered to sell me his ring, when I became disgusted and dismissed him. His visit was rather longer than he intended it to be, from my ignorance of the Indian usage which forbids a visitor to depart until he has received permission from his host. I had been hoping he would go, and when he began begging, expressed my wishes to my servant, who advised me to say "Rookhsut hy," i. e., "There is permission to depart," when he looked very grateful, put on his shoes, salámed, and left. This is a custom which it is somewhat hard for a stranger to learn, as it seems to us rude to turn away a guest. Some of our expressions, however, seem to point to its having once been usual in Europe, as, for instance, "to take leave" in English, and "prendre congé" or "donner congé" in French.

Soon after leaving Sahussuram we came up with an old fellow on a camel. As he did not get out of our way quickly enough, my coachman gave him a cut with his whip-lash, which so discomposed him that he tumbled off his beast, and must, I fancy, have had a pretty heavy fall. I spoke to my servant about it, and told him to reprimand the coachman, but he seemed to consider it a most excellent joke. There seems to be no sympathy with suffering in the East. A man may die by the roadside, with hundreds of people passing him, not one of whom will take the least trouble for his relief. The parable of the "Good Samaritan" must come with great force to men thus constituted. Among Christians, however inconsistent their general practice might be, no man could lie wounded and dying by a wayside, and not become the object of general attention and care. In India, on the other hand, were a Brahmun to touch such a person he would be defiled; were any of a higher caste to touch his blood pollution would ensue; so that both these classes would be forbidden to give relief by their religion itself; and no one of his own or of a lower caste, not even his acquaintances, would probably think it worth while to interfere unless they hoped for some advantage by so doing. When I was going from Agra to Bombay, with a retinue of twenty bearers, it happened several times that men were taken ill, and left by the others to die on the

road without a rupee to relieve even their immediate necessities. I did not usually find such occurrences out till several days after, when a man would be missing when I counted the bearers; the miserable rogues always concealing the fact of one of their number having given out, in order to get the wages which are his due, and divide them among themselves.

After leaving Sahussuram the country is a flat, uninteresting plain, with hardly any trees, villages sparsely scattered, and cultivation in patches. We crossed the Ganges at midnight, in a large scow, and at two o'clock on the morning of the 5th of November, arrived at the hotel in Sĕroor.

Séroor is four miles from Benares, and is the military station of that city. It is just like Dum-Dum and all other cantonments in India—the same broad roads, the same ugly, lowwalled, one-storied bungalows with steep, high, thatched roofs, in desolate compounds; the same hideous church, and the two stores. Seroor being a large station, and on the great route up-country, has two hotels, which are, like other Mofussil hotels, merely ordinary bungalows furnished by some native or half-caste on the chance of travellers requiring better ac commodations than they can get at the dâk-bungalow. They will not accommodate more than seven or eight lodgers.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE HOLY CITY OF INDIA.

The Sacred Apes-The City from the River-The Observatory-Oriental Science-The Golden Temple-Sacred Bulls-The Great Devil-Hindooism-The Goddess of the Skull-chaplet-Poojah-The Holy Well-Self-Torture-Caste-Brahmunical Regeneration-Supremacy of the Sacred Caste.

THE city of Benares is the Jerusalem or Mecca of the Hindoo; nay, it has in his eyes a far greater sanctity than have either of those two holy places in the estimation of Christians or Moosulmans, for he believes that Benares is not founded on the tortoise which is the common support of the earth, but rests on the point of Seewa's trident; that all who die in, or within nine miles of it, proceed directly to heaven; and that the material and visible Bĕnares is not so much a city, in se, as a shadow or ektype of the celestial city, the heavenly Běnarĕs.

There are about 500,000 inhabitants in Benares, but the number cannot be exactly ascertained, as both Hindoos and Moosulmans regard it as impious to number the people—an opinion which seems to have prevailed among the Jews.

Colonel Mowatt, the commandant at Dum-Dum, had given me a letter to Captain Waddy of Benares, asking him to show me all the sights, and let me have an elephant on which to go through the market-place. Captain Waddy had, however, unfortunately, gone to Deenapoor, and a humble garrhee had to be substituted for the majestic elephant.

I engaged a young Armenian as guide, and we left the hotel at five in the morning, in order to be in time to see the bathers in the Ganges. A drive of three-quarters of an hour through a suburb of mud huts brought us to the river's edge, at the upper end of the city. On our way we passed what is

called the "monkey-garden," an enclosure containing several temples and many hundred apes, sacred to Hooniman, the divine ape who conquered Ceylon for Rama. The apes are generally fine fat fellows, of a rich orange colour, and do not at all confine themselves to their enclosure, but range for a mile around, laying hands on all they can find. A Hindoo considers it a great honour and advantage if he can, by rich food and comfortable lodging, entice one of these animals to stay any length of time on his premises. The apes are very tame, as their sacred character protects them from all molestation. An Englishman was once drowned in the Ganges near Benares, for having ignorantly shot one of them.

We embarked in a dingee on the Ganges, and commenced pulling down the river. The sun was about an hour high, and shone full on the long line of palaces, temples, and mosques, built on the edge of the cliff on which the city is situated. The opposite bank of the river is perfectly flat and unoccupied. From the summit of the cliff, which is about eighty feet above the river, a long and continuous line of broad stone steps leads down to the water's edge. Near the bottom the ghât (steps) is broken by a broad platform, which serves as a thoroughfare, and gives accommodation to numerous small traders. From this platform jetties project into the river. At the further end of these jetties are graceful stone kiosks, sheltering some hideous idol before which a Brahmun may generally be seen performing poojah.

The buildings which crown the cliff, and form the water front of the city, are all striking in appearance. The dwelling houses are always large, being the residences of rajahs, and other rich men who come to Benares to end their days, on account of the sanctity of the place. Like the ghâts and temples, they are constructed of a fine light-coloured and durable freestone. The architecture varies somewhat, but the windows and doors are pointed the former generally filled up with stone trellis-work, in lieu of glass. The mundrăs, or Hindoo temples form a striking feature in the coup d'œil. They are never of large size, and are surrounded by an enclosure, above which are seen the pyramidal spires which form