prosperous. The city is visited by hundreds of thousands
of pilgrims every year, all of whom bring in more or less money,
and the houses and shops are of a more permanent and imposing
order of architecture than those of Delhi, Agra and other places.
It has the appearance of being a rich community.

The shade trees along the streets swarm with monkeys and parrots,
which are sacred, and when you go there you mustn't jump if a
grinning monkey drops down upon your shoulders in a most casual
manner and chatters in your ear. The animals are very tame. They
are fed by the pilgrims, who gain great merit with the gods thereby,
and the river is filled with sacred turtles, which are also objects
of great interest and devotion.

Only two towns in India are more sacred than Muttra. One is Benares
and the other is Jagernath, or Juggernaut, which is about 150
miles south of Calcutta on the shore of the Bay of Bengal. There
is the great idol which we have all heard about from the
missionaries, and, I regret to say, some have been guilty of a
good deal of misrepresentation and exaggeration. When I was a
boy I read in Sunday-school books the most heart-tearing tales
about the poor heathen, who cast themselves down before the car of
Juggernaut and were crushed to lifeless pulp under its monstrous
wheels. This story has been told thousands of times to millions
of horrified listeners, but an inquiry into the facts does not
confirm it. It is true that on certain holy days the great image
of Juggernaut, or Jagernath, whichever way you choose to spell
it, and it weighs many tons, is placed upon a car and the car is
drawn through the crowded streets by thousands of pilgrims, who
cast flowers, rice, wheat, palm leaves, bamboo wisps, sweetmeats
and other offerings in its way. Occasionally in the throng that
presses around the image some one is thrown down and has the
life trampled out of him; on several occasions people have been
caught by the wheels or the frame of the car and crushed, and
at rare intervals some hysterical worshiper has fallen in a fit
of epilepsy or exhaustion and been run over, but the official
records, which began in 1818, show only nine such occurrences
during the last eighty-six years.

I have great respect for missionaries, but I wish some of them
would be more charitable in disposition, a little more accurate
in statement, and not print so much trash. In Muttra you have a
good illustration of their usefulness. The Am