s, past,
present, and future, are washed away.

Next to washing in the sacred stream during life, the Hindoo's ambition
is to yield up the ghost on its bank, and then to be burned on the
Burning Ghaut and have his ashes cast adrift on the waters. On the
Manikarnika ghaut the Hindoos burn their dead. To the unbelieving
Ferenghi tourist there seems to be a "nigger in the fence" about all
these heathen ceremonies, and in the burning of the dead the wily
priesthood has managed to obtain a valuable monopoly on firewood, by
which they have accumulated immense wealth. No Hindoo, no matter how
pious he has been through life, how many offerings he has made to the
gods, or how thoroughly he has scoured his yellow hide in the Ganges, can
ever hope to reach Baikunt (heaven) unless the wood employed at his
funeral pyre come from a domra. Domras are the lowest and most despised
caste in India, a caste which no Hindoo would, under any consideration,
allow himself to touch during life, or administer food to him even if
starving to death; but after his holier brethren have yielded up the
ghost, then the despised domra has his innings. Then it is that the
relatives of the deceased have to humble themselves before the domra to
obtain firing to burn the body. Realizing that they now have the pull,
the wily domras sometimes bleed their mournful patrons unmercifully. As
many as a thousand rupees have been paid for a fire by wealthy rajahs.
The domra who holds the monopoly at the Manikarnika ghaut is one of the
richest men in Benares.

Two or three bodies swathed in white are observed waiting their turn to
be burned, others are already burning, and in another spot is the corpse
of some wealthier person wrapped in silver tinsel. Not the least
interesting of the sights is that of men and boys here and there engaged
in dipping up mud from the bottom and washing it in pans similar to the
gold-pans of placer-miners; they make their livelihood by finding
occasional coins and ornaments, accidentally lost by bathers. A very
unique and beautifully carved edifice is the Nepaulese temple; but the
carvings are unfit for popular inspection.

The whole river-front above the ghauts is occupied by temples and the
palaces of rajahs, who spend a portion of their time here preparing
themselves for happiness hereafter, by drinking Ganges water and
propitiating the gods. On festival occasions, and particularly during an
eclipse, as many as one hundred thousand