One could properly expect an ass to have an aversion to being
turned into a Hindoo. One could understand that he could lose dignity by
it; also self-respect, and nine-tenths of his intelligence. But the
Hindoo changed into an ass wouldn't lose anything, unless you count his
religion. And he would gain much--release from his slavery to two
million gods and twenty million priests, fakeers, holy mendicants, and
other sacred bacilli; he would escape the Hindoo hell; he would also
escape the Hindoo heaven. These are advantages which the Hindoo ought to
consider; then he would go over and die on the other side.

Benares is a religious Vesuvius. In its bowels the theological forces
have been heaving and tossing, rumbling, thundering and quaking, boiling,
and weltering and flaming and smoking for ages. But a little group of
missionaries have taken post at its base, and they have hopes. There are
the Baptist Missionary Society, the Church Missionary Society, the London
Missionary Society, the Wesleyan Missionary Society, and the Zenana Bible
and Medical Mission. They have schools, and the principal work seems to
be among the children. And no doubt that part of the work prospers best,
for grown people everywhere are always likely to cling to the religion
they were brought up in.

CHAPTER LII.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

In one of those Benares temples we saw a devotee working for salvation in
a curious way. He had a huge wad of clay beside him and was making it up
into little wee gods no bigger than carpet tacks. He stuck a grain of
rice into each--to represent the lingam, I think. He turned them out
nimbly, for he had had long practice and had acquired great facility.
Every day he made 2,000 gods, then threw them into the holy Ganges. This
act of homage brought him the profound homage of the pious--also their
coppers. He had a sure living here, and was earning a high place in the
hereafter.

The Ganges front is the supreme show-place of Benares. Its tall bluffs
are solidly caked from water to summit, along a stretch of three miles,
with a splendid jumble of massive and picturesque masonry, a bewildering
and beautiful confusion of stone platforms, temples, stair-flights, rich
and stately palaces--nowhere a break, nowhere a glimpse of the bluff
itself; all the long face of it is compactly walled from sight