to him daily. His income from offerings amounts to many thousands of
rupees annually: there is a reservoir for the reception of offerings
about three feet square by half that in depth. The Maharajah Ranjit
Singh, Rajah of the Punjab, once filled this place with gold mohurs; many
wealthy Hindoos have from time to time filled it with rupees.

The old guide whom I have employed to show me about then conducts me into
the "Cow Temple," a filthy court containing a number of pampered-looking
Brahman bulls, and several youthful bovines whose great privilege it is
to roam about the court-yard and accept tid-bits from the hands of
devotees. In the same court-yard-like shivala are several red idols, and
the numerous comers and goers make the place as animated as a vegetable
market at early morning. Priests, too, are here in numbers; seated on a
central elevation they make red marks on the faces of the devotees,
dipping in the mixture with their finger; in return they receive a small
coin, or a pinch of rice or grain is thrown into a vessel placed there for
the purpose.

In many stalls are big piles of flower-petals which devotees purchase to
present as offerings. Men and women by the hundred are encountered in the
narrow streets, passing briskly along with baskets containing a supply of
these petals, a dish of rice, and a bowl of water; one would think, from
their business-like manner, that they were going, or had been, marketing.
They are going the morning round of their favorite gods, or the gods
whose particular services they happen to stand in need of at the time;
before these idols they pause for a moment, mutter their supplications,
and sprinkle them with water and flower-petals, passing from one deity to
another in a most business-like, matter-of-fact manner. Women unblessed
with children throng to the idols of Sidheswari and Sankatadevi,
bestowing offerings and making supplication for sons and daughters;
pilgrims from afar are flocking to Sakhi-Banaik, whose office it is to
testify in the next world of their pilgrimage in this. No matter how far
a pilgrim has come, and how many offerings he has bestowed since his
arrival, unless he repair to the shivala of Sakhi Banaik and duly report
his appearance, his pilgrimage will have been performed in vain.

Everywhere, in niches of the walls, under trees, on pedestals at frequent
corners, are idols, hideously ugly; red idols, idols with silver faces
and stone bodies, some with mo