k overlapping the river, and executes with studied deliberation a
program of purification marvelous in detail. Receptacles of brass and
silver are brought him, and for an hour or longer he rubs his handsome
frame with unguents and perfumes, slowly stripes forehead, biceps and
breast with the ash-marks of sanctity, and places a wafer of his caste
on his forehead. Later he climbs the ghat to his favorite temple,
probably content with the emoluments thrust upon him at the water side,
or may be he goes to the bazaar to learn the latest gossip of religious
and political India. It is in no sense a losing game to be a member of
the Brahministic ring controlling things in Benares, for the flow of
coin from the two hundred million Hindus is ceaseless.

[Illustration: BENARES HOLY MEN]

A curious sight in Benares is the Monkey Temple, a pretentious and not
inartistic structure of carved red sandstone dedicated to Kali, the
goddess wife of Siva. The image of Kali within the temple is a black
fury of hideous countenance, whose red tongue droops to the waist. She
is dripping with blood, and crowned with snakes, while hanging from
her neck is a garland of human skulls. Kali wants blood, and if not
propitiated daily therewith something horrible is expected to happen.
Every Indian town has a temple to this monster; and everywhere
throughout what Kipling calls "the great, gray, formless India,"
sacrifices are made each morning to this ogress with insatiable appetite
for blood.

The entrance to the Monkey Temple is slime-covered and the air heavy
with sickening odors. Through a stone doorway the goddess may be seen
enshrined, grinning demoniacally. Twenty horrible men, harmonizing in
appearance to a reader's conception of thugs, gather in the court, to
give each batch of visitors the performance that most have come to
witness. The frontal region of their heads is shaven smooth, and each
loathsome Indian drools betel-nut saliva that looks like blood. A goat
is led into the enclosure and tied to a stone post, and the evil-looking
men form a circle about the helpless animal. One of them holds the rear
legs of the beast clear of the ground. A chant issues from the
betel-stained mouths, and a human fiend forces through the circle,
brandishing a straight-bladed sword, heavy and keen-edged, that has just
been blessed before the altar of Kali. He is the official executioner.

This functionary makes a sign of readiness, swings the blade at arm