women, and
comely young maidens waist deep in the water-and they were scooping it up
in their hands and drinking it. Faith can certainly do wonders, and this
is an instance of it. Those people were not drinking that fearful stuff
to assuage thirst, but in order to purify their souls and the interior of
their bodies. According to their creed, the Ganges water makes
everything pure that it touches--instantly and utterly pure. The sewer
water was not an offence to them, the corpse did not revolt them; the
sacred water had touched both, and both were now snow-pure, and could
defile no one. The memory of that sight will always stay by me; but not
by request.

A word further concerning the nasty but all-purifying Ganges water. When
we went to Agra, by and by, we happened there just in time to be in at
the birth of a marvel--a memorable scientific discovery--the discovery
that in certain ways the foul and derided Ganges water is the most
puissant purifier in the world! This curious fact, as I have said, had
just been added to the treasury of modern science. It had long been
noted as a strange thing that while Benares is often afflicted with the
cholera she does not spread it beyond her borders. This could not be
accounted for. Mr. Henkin, the scientist in the employ of the government
of Agra, concluded to examine the water. He went to Benares and made his
tests. He got water at the mouths of the sewers where they empty into
the river at the bathing ghats; a cubic centimetre of it contained
millions of germs; at the end of six hours they were all dead. He caught
a floating corpse, towed it to the shore, and from beside it he dipped up
water that was swarming with cholera germs; at the end of six hours they
were all dead. He added swarm after swarm of cholera germs to this
water; within the six hours they always died, to the last sample.
Repeatedly, he took pure well water which was bare of animal life, and
put into it a few cholera germs; they always began to propagate at once,
and always within six hours they swarmed--and were numberable by millions
upon millions.

For ages and ages the Hindoos have had absolute faith that the water of
the Ganges was absolutely pure, could not be defiled by any contact
whatsoever, and infallibly made pure and clean whatsoever thing touched
it. They still believe it, and that is why they bathe in it and drink
it, caring nothing for its seeming filthiness and the floating corpse