d, and if he
does not receive all the attention and worship he deserves is
apt to be spiteful. Some people are so particular that they never
begin a letter without saluting him in the first line.

Driving along the roads of this part of India one often sees
stones piled up against the trunk of a tree and at the top a
rude elephant's head, decorated with flowers or stained with oil
or red paint, and there will always be a little heap of gravel
before it. That elephant's head represents the god Ganesa, and
each stone represents an offering by some one who has passed
by, usually the poorest, who have not been able to visit the
temple, and, having nothing else to offer, not even a flower,
drop a stone before the rude shrine.

There are many sacred cows in Benares. You find them in temples
and wandering around the streets. Some of them are horribly diseased
and they are all lazy, fat and filthy. They have perfect freedom.
They are allowed to wander about and do as they please. They
feed from baskets of vegetables and salad that stand before the
groceries and in the markets, and sometimes consume the entire
stock of some poor huckster, who dare not drive them away or
even rebuke them. If he should attempt to do so the gods would
visit him with perpetual misfortunes. Children play around the
beasts, but no one ever abuses them. Pilgrims buy food for them
and stuff them with sweetmeats, and it is an act of piety and
merit to hang garlands over their horns and braid ribbons in
their tails. When they die they are buried with great ceremony,
like the sacred bulls of Egypt.

Benares is the principal center of the idol trade, and a large
part of the population are engaged in making images of the various
gods in gold, silver, brass, copper, wood, stone, clay and other
materials. Most of the work is done in the households. There
are several small factories, but none employs more than ten or
a dozen men, and the streets are lined with little shops, no
bigger than an ordinary linen closet in an American house. Each
opens entirely upon the street, there are no doors or windows,
and when the proprietor wants to close he puts up heavy wooden
shutters that fit into grooves in the threshold and the beam
that sustains the roof. The shelves that hang from the three
walls are covered with all kinds of images in all sizes and of
all materials, and between sales the proprietor squats on the
floor in the middle of his little establishment ma