ering
the population; there are many more Mohammedans, but by far the largest
number of the people, outnumbering the Mohammedans by three to one, are
the Hindus, and it is as a Hindu capital that Benares mainly exists.
British rule throws protection alike over all races and all religions;
never was there a broader based dominion; be a man a Hindu, Sikh,
Mohammedan, Parsee, Buddhist, or Christian, the law protects him in the
exercise of his faith so long as it does not lead to cruelty such as in
the burning of widows, or so long as it does not encroach upon the
rights of others.

The Hindu religion is an extraordinary one. At first sight, seeing the
jumble up of strange gods,--the cow-goddess, the monkey-god,
elephant-god, and others,--it seems rather to resemble the religion of
the ancient Egyptians, but it is not a real resemblance. The highest
idea of the Hindu, as of the Buddhist, is to pass out into a sort of
painless existence of nothingness. And to overcome the flesh and to
arrive at a placid state, where nothing matters, is attempted here on
earth by some. Some of the old men, fakirs as they are called, like the
one we met in Delhi, do astonishing things merely by force of an iron
determination. They will sit so long holding an arm in one position that
it shrivels. Others will lie for years on a bed of spikes. They eat very
little, live on charity, and are often lost in a state of trance.

[Illustration: A FAKIR.]

As we row slowly back along the river we see countless flat umbrellas,
like those known as Japanese umbrellas, studding the gay crowd; under
each one of these there is a "holy man," and there are thousands of them
altogether in this city, living on the offerings of the pilgrims.

Look at that fellow seated cross-legged on a plank running out into the
river. He pours water over his feet every now and again out of a little
copper bowl, and mutters something. He is so much absorbed in what he
is doing that he never looks up or turns his head. Another, close by,
has hung his gaily-coloured turban on a post and proceeds to unwind his
garment and cast it from him before he steps into the water with hardly
a rag upon him. This lady in an orange scarf, dripping wet, seats
herself on the end of the board, and winds a dry scarf round herself so
adroitly that it is like a conjuring trick; she stands up and the wet
one falls from her. She would get well paid as a quick-change artiste at
a music hall, and such