tic view of the city is to be obtained from the
river front, a boat was taken, with half a dozen oarsmen, to pull along
the ghats, or flights of broad stone steps, descending to the river from
the shattered old palaces, prostrate temples, and half-sunken quays,
which extend in a continuous line for more than two miles along the
Ganges. Here hundreds, nay thousands of people of both sexes and of all
conditions, are to be seen at any hour of the day dipping and washing in
the sacred waters; which ceremony to them is tangible prayer. Here was a
small group gathered about a delicate invalid, who lay upon a litter,
brought to the spot that she might be bathed in these waters, which it
was hoped would make her whole. Here still another collection surrounded
the fading and flickering lamp of life that burned dimly in the breast
of age, come to die by the healing river. And close at hand, beneath
that sheet, was the cold clay of one already departed, now to be
consumed upon the funeral pyre and his ashes cast into the Ganges. What
a picture of life and death, what a practical comment upon poor
humanity! On these ghats the Hindoos pass their happiest hours,
notwithstanding these sad episodes; coming from the confined, dirty,
unwholesome streets in which they sleep and eat, to pray and bathe, as
well as to breathe the fresh air and to bask in the sun. The hideous
fakirs make their fixed lodging-places here, living entirely in the open
air, in all their revolting personal deformity, diseased and filthy.
Their distorted limbs fixed in every conceivable attitude of penance,
their faces besmeared with white clay, and their long hair matted and
clotted with dirt. There are pious fools enough to kneel before them,
and to give them food and money, by which they are supported in their
crazy self-immolation.

It was observed that some of the women took into the river with them
short garlands of yellow and white flowers, which they seemed to count
over like a Roman Catholic kneeling with her beads, and finally to break
them in pieces and cast them upon the surface of the river, watching
them borne away upon the tide. Each one was provided also with a small
brass jar in which to carry away a portion of the sacred water, after
having completed their baths, and washed their clothes therein. The
people have no hesitation in drinking this water in which so many have
bathed, nor in carrying it home for cooking purposes. Yet they must
have, like