salmans, and attacked them with every sort of weapon within their reach. One mosque was pulled down; and they determined to destroy every other in the city: but the civil authorities, with all the military force that could be collected, interposed, and, by putting guards to defend the mosques, succeeded in saving them.

"It was difficult, indeed, to trust to the native soldiers but they did their duty well; for, though many of them were Brahmans, they kept guard manfully on the mosques, in fidelity to their military oath; though, doubtless, it would have been more agreeable to their own feelings to have joined in pulling them down. Yet they kept off the Brahmans, as well as others, at the point of the bayonet. Two Brahman soldiers, keeping guard where the pillar was lying prostrate, were overheard thus conversing on the subject: Ah,' said one, we have seen what we never thought to see-Siva's Lat has its head level with the ground. We shall all be of one caste shortly. What will be our religion then?' 'I suppose the Christian,' answered the other; 'for, after all that has passed, I am sure we shall never become Mussulmans.'

Although the storm was allayed through the interference of the authorities, yet the religious feelings of the Hindus, which had been so violently roused, were by no means pacified. "In the early part of the quarrel," says Mr. Buyers, "the Mussalmans, in order to be revenged on the Hindus for the defeat they had sustained, had taken a cow, and killed it on one of the holiest gháts, and mingled its blood with the sacred

water of the Gangá. This act of double sacrilege was looked on, by the Brahmans, as having destroyed the sacredness of the holy place, if not of the whole city, so that salvation in future might not be attainable by pilgrimage to Benares. They were, therefore, all in the greatest affliction; and all the Brahmans in the city, many thousands in number, went down, in deep sorrow, to the river side, naked and fasting, and with ashes on their heads, and sat down on the principal gháts, with folded hands, and heads hanging down, to all appearance inconsolable, and refusing to enter a house or to taste food. Two or three days' abstinance, however, tired them; and a hint was given to the magistrates and other public men, that a visit of condolence and some expression of sympathy would comfort them, and give them some excuse for returning to their usual course of life. Accordingly, the British functionaries went to the principal ghát, and expressed their sorrow for the distress in which they saw them, but reasoned with them on the absurdity of punishing themselves for an act in which they had no share, and which they had done all they could to prevent or avenge. This prevailed; and, after much bitter weeping, it was resolved that 'Gangá was Gangá still,' and that a succession of costly offerings from the laity of Benares, the usual Brahmanical remedy for all evils, might wipe out the stain which their religion had received, and that the advice of the judges was the best and most reasonable. Mr. Bird (the chief English official in Benares), who was one of the ambassadors on this occasion, said that the scene was very

impressive, and even awful. The gaunt, squalid figures of the devotees, their visible and, apparently, unaffected anguish and dismay, the screams and outcries of the women who surrounded them, and the great numbers thus assembled, altogether constituted a spectacle of woe such as few cities but Benares could supply.""

Formerly, a large annual melá or fair used to be held on this venerated spot; but, of late years, the place has been well-nigh abandoned, so that even the melá fails to attract more than a few dozens of people.

By the side of the Kapilmochan Tank a narrow road branches off from the high road, at right angles to it, and runs on to the river Barna, which it crosses, and thence winds, through the country, to the city of Ghazeepore. Judging from the depth to which it occasionally sinks, as compared with the fields on either side, it must be of considerable antiquity. The road is traversed by large numbers of people, and may be regarded as one of the chief outlets of the city in this direction. In the dry season a dam is thrown up across the Barna, over which passengers are permitted to pass, on the payment of a small toll; in the rains the river becomes swollen and deep, and, consequently, the traffic of the road is conveyed over by means of a ferry. In olden times a spacious bridge, erected by the Mohammedan rulers of the country, spanned the river at this place, but fell into decay, and, eventually, into utter ruin. Its foundations are still visible in the bed of the stream; but they are very limited in extent. A few years ago most of the stones of the ruined bridge were taken away, and

utilized for the erection of the present Barna bridge, connecting the civil with the military lines. It has seemed to my mind a somewhat inconsiderate policy, on the part of the local authorities, that, while collecting a revenue from the ferry and the dam, they have never projected a new bridge, but have left the entire northern boundary of the city, for the space of between three and four miles, without any proper and adequate means of communication with the country beyond the Barna. Further up the river there is the Iron Bridge, and also that already alluded to; but these are too far off to be of any real benefit to the inhabitants of the city on the one side of the Barna, and of the numerous villages on the other side, throughout the whole of the tract to which I am referring, except by their making a considerable detour; and this, on account of the great distance to be traversed, is, I fear, in the case of many of them, impracticable.

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CHAPTER XVI.

ŚIVÁLA Ghát.—The Old Fort.-Raja Cheit Singh: History of his Insurrection and of the Proceedings of Warren Hastings in Connexion therewith.

SIVÁLA Ghát is interesting on account of its connexion with the insurrection at Benares in the time of Warren Hastings, the downfall of Raja Cheit Singh, the former Raja of Benares, and the destruction of his family, which followed that event. When Cheit Singh rebelled against the British Government, he was residing in a strong fort built upon the banks of the Ganges, above the Sivála Ghát. Warren Hastings was, at the time, living in the garden house of Mádhodás, situated in the Ausánganj Mahalla, nearly three miles off, on the western side of the city. The history of this famous insurrection is briefly as follows.

Raja Cheit Singh, although a great noble, exercising considerable power and authority throughout his extensive domains,-in virtue of which he might, perhaps, be regarded as possessing a jurisdiction similar to that of many European princes, yet was not, in truth, a reigning monarch, or even a great tributary chief. He had no authority beyond what he derived from the East