njinga, twenty-eight
thousand feet high and forty-six miles away. Mt. Everest, a hundred
miles distant, is twenty-nine thousand feet high, but from Darjeeling is
invisible. Kinchinjinga is nearly twice as high as Mont Blanc, and its
glittering mass is a spectacle never to be forgotten. Curiously enough,
upon the summit of Observatory Hill, from which we gained our view,
the immigrant Tibetans had erected their shrine, and long, inscribed
paper and muslin streamers, enclosing a large quadrangle, gave to the
winds their prayers. No idol was to be seen. The worship seems to be
far more spiritual than that of the Hindus. Nature seems to have
taught that secluded race of Tibetans a more primitive religion than
modern Hinduism. It is a religion mixed with Buddhism, but preserving
the earlier view of a divinity in natural objects, which Hinduism has
almost wholly outgrown.

Our next point of investigation was Benares, "the holy city," the Mecca
and Jerusalem of the Hindus. It is a hotbed of heathen enthusiasm and of
blinded devotion. The sacred river Ganges flows by, with tier upon tier
of temples rising from its steep banks--such a congestion of religious
edifices that one might almost doubt whether they had left room for any
but priests to live. Every day, hundreds of pilgrims troop through its
streets and throng these temples, presenting their flowers and their
offerings, making their sacrifices, and listening submissively to the
instructions and threatenings of the priests. Every temple has its
sacred animals, to be sacrificed or worshiped. The "Golden Temple,"
so-named, is covered with gold-leaf from its spire to its base. The
noisy crowd in its corridors, the noisome odors of its sanctuaries,
the adjurations of its priests and their evident aim to turn religion
into financial gain, disgust the Christian traveler, while they show
him how deeply rooted in the human heart is this towering system of
idolatry and superstition.

But only the water-view of Benares presents Hinduism in its most
characteristic aspect. It is the sacred river that makes sacred the
town. This river is regarded as itself divine, for it had its source in
the mouth of Brahma. Hence it is endowed with life-giving and purifying
powers. It is bordered for a full mile by a grand succession of palaces
and temples, of bathing ghats and of burning ghats. Here the Hindu,
often after long pilgrimage, washes away his defilement and prepares
himself to die. Whe