This, however, is not all. India is never too sanitary, except where the
English are in their own strongholds, but Benares--at any rate the parts
which the tourist must visit--is least scrupulous in such matters. The
canonization of the cow must needs carry a penalty with it, and Benares
might be described as a sanctified byre without any labouring Hercules
in prospect. Godliness it may have, but cleanliness is very distant. The
streets, too, seem to be narrower and more congested than those in any
other city; so that it is often embarrassingly difficult to treat the
approaching ruminants with the respect due to them. Fortunately they are
seldom anything but mild and unaggressive. Part perplexed, part
inquisitive, and part contemptuous, they are met everywhere, while in
one of the temples in which the unbeliever may (to his great
contentment) do no more than stand at the entrance, they are frankly
worshipped. In another temple monkeys are revered too, careering about
the walls and courtyards and being fed by the curious and the devout.
Holiness is not only the peculiar characteristic of Benares: it is also
its staple industry. In the streets there is a shrine at every few feet,
while the shops where little lingams are for sale must be numbered by
hundreds.
The chief glory of Benares is, however, the Ganges, on one side of which
is the teeming sweltering city with its palaces and temples heaped high
for two or three miles, and bathers swarming at the river's edge; while
the other bank is flat and bare.
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