is positively dangerous, I am
everywhere told, but thus far I have managed to keep free from actual
sickness.

The sacred river is at its highest flood, and hereabout not less than a
mile and half wide. The ferry service is rude and inefficient, being
under the management of natives, who reck little of the flight of time or
modern improvements. The superintendent will bestir himself, however, in
behalf of the Sahib who is riding the Ferenghi gharri around the world:
instead of putting me aboard the big slow ferry, he will man a smaller
and swifter boat to ferry me over. The "small boat" is accordingly
produced, and turns out to be a rude flat-boat sort of craft, capable of
carrying fully twenty tons, and it is manned by eight oarsmen. Their oars
are stout bamboo poles with bits of broad board nailed or tied on the
end.

Much of the Ganges' present width is mere overflow, shallow enough for
the men to wade and tow the boat. It is tugged a considerable distance
up-stream, to take advantage of the swift current in crossing the main
channel. The oars are plied vigorously to a weird refrain of "deelah,
sahlah-deelah, sahlah!" the stroke oarsman shouting "deelah" and the
others replying "sahlah" in chorus. Two hours are consumed in crossing
the river, but once across the road is perfection itself, right from the
river's brink.

Through the valley of the sacred river, the splendid kunkah road leads
onward to Benares, the great centre of Hindoo idolatry, a city that is
more to the Hindoo than is Mecca to the Mohammedans or Jerusalem to the
early Christians. Shrines and idols multiply by the roadside, and tanks
innumerable afford bathing and purifying facilities for the far-travelled
pilgrims who swarm the road in thousands. As the heathen devotee
approaches nearer and nearer to Benares he feels more and more
devotionally inclined, and these tanks of the semi-sacred water of the
Ganges Valley happily afford him opportunity to soften up the crust of
his accumulated transgressions, preparatory to washing them away entirely
by a plunge off the Kamnagar ghaut at Benares. Many of the people are
trudging their way homeward again, happy in the possession of bottles of
sacred water obtained from the river at the holy city. Precious liquid
this, that they are carrying in earthenware bottles hundreds of weary
miles to gladden the hearts of stay-at-home friends and relations.

At every tank scores of people are bathing, washing their c