,
strange to say they are proportionately fewer than in ten cities of the
North-West. According to the census of 1872, there were 133,549 Hindus
and 44,374 Mussulmans: that is, a little more than three Hindus to one
Mussulman. In the great commercial city of Mirzapore, about thirty miles
distant from Benares, there were five Hindus to one Mussulman. The fact
thus certified is entirely at variance with the conjecture made by those
who look at the crowds bathing at the riverside, and frequenting the
temples, and contrast them with the small number seen in the mosques,
even on Friday, the Muhammadan weekly day of worship. In the district
the Hindus vastly out-number the Muhammadans.

Benares is built on the left bank of the Ganges, and extends in a
crescent shape three miles and a half along the bank, and a little more
than a mile inward. The most imposing view is from a boat slowly
dropping down the stream in the early morning--the earlier the better,
especially if it be the hot season, as then the people betake themselves
to the river in greater numbers than at any other time. Travellers in
many lands who have seen this view, have declared it to be one of the
most remarkable sights of the kind which the world presents.

Photographic and pencil pictures of Benares have appeared in illustrated
newspapers, in periodicals and books, and give a more vivid and correct
impression than can be conveyed by a verbal description. These pictures
can, however, be better understood when those who look at them are
furnished with information which no picture can afford.

The right bank of the Ganges at Benares is very low, and is always
flooded when the river rises; but the left bank, on which the city
stands, is in many parts more than a hundred feet high. The river sweeps
round this high bank. The city is connected with the river by flights of
stone steps, called "ghats." This word ghat often meets the reader of
books on India. It has various meanings. It means a mountain-pass, a
ferry, a place on the riverside where people meet, and, as is the case
at Benares, the steps which lead down to the river. Two small streams
enter the Ganges at Benares--on the southern side the Assi, on the
northern side the Burna. Some have supposed that the city has received
its name from lying between these two rivulets--Burna, Assi, making the
word Burunassi, Benares; but this derivation is more than doubtful.
Others maintain the word comes from a famou