s rajah called Bunar; but
this, too, is a mere conjecture.

[Sidenote: A TRIP ON THE RIVER.]

Let me take my readers with me on a trip down the river. We embark at
early dawn on a native boat at Assi Sungam, which means the confluence
of the Assi with the Ganges, at the southern extremity. Towards that end
of the city some of the houses seen on the high bank are poor, some are
falling into decay; but as you advance, lofty buildings, some of them of
a size and grandeur which entitle them to the name of palaces, come into
view. Their numerous small windows, their rich and varied carving, their
balconies and flat roofs, give them a very Eastern look. Perhaps the
most notable of the buildings are an observatory, built by a famous
Rajput prince, Jae Singh, and a massy and extensive structure, with its
buttresses and high walls looking as if recently erected, which was
built in the last half of the eighteenth century by Cheit-Singh, the
Rajah of Benares at that time, who was deposed by Warren Hastings on
account of his refusal to comply with the demands of the British
Government. In Macaulay's famous Essay on Warren Hastings there is a
long narrative of this contest, which is amusingly at variance with the
narrative given by Warren Hastings himself. This building is still
called Cheit-Singh's Palace, but since his day it has been the property
of the British Government, and has been for many years the residence of
princes of the old imperial family of Delhi, who on account of family
troubles had come to reside in Benares, and were, happily for
themselves, far from Delhi during the mutiny of 1857. Some of the
mansions facing the river belong to Indian princes, who occupy them on
the rare occasion of visits to the city, and leave them in charge of
servants, of whom a number are Brahmans performing sacred rites on
their behalf.

There is one spot on the riverside from which most visitors avert their
eyes with horror--the place where the dead of Benares and the
surrounding country are being burnt, and the ashes thrown into the
stream. The fire at that place never goes out. Cremation, not burial, it
is well known, is the Indian mode of disposing of the dead.

The peculiarity of Benares as the sacred city of the country is
strikingly attested by the temples, which crowd the high bank of the
river, and arrest the special attention of the visitor. Some of these
are much larger and more expensive than others, but there is little
v