BENARES. 169 
seen on this side of the bright meadows and green trees which adorn 
the European residents' dwellings, some four miles back from the river. 
The streets are so narrow, that it is difficult to ride a horse through them ; 
and the houses are often six stories high, with galleries crossing above, 
from house to house. These tall, gaunt edifices sometimes give place 
to clumps of cottages, and a mass of dusty ruins, the unsavoury 
retreats of vermin and filth, where the Calotropis arborea generally 
spreads its white branches and hollow glaucous leaves—a dusty plant. 
ere, too, enormous spiders’ webs hang from the crumbling walls, 
choked also with dust, and resembling webs of coarse muslin, being 
often some yards across, and not arranged in radii and arcs, but spun 
like weavers’ woofs. Paintings, remarkable only for their hideous pro- 
portions or want of perspective, are gaudily daubed in scarlet, ochre, 
and indigo. The elephant, camel, and porpoise of the Ganges, dog, 
shepherd, peacock, and horse, are especially frequent, and so is a 
running pattern of a hand spread open, with a blood-red spot on the 
alm. A less elegant, but more frequent object, is the fuel, which is 
collected on the roads of the city, moulded into flat cakes, and stuck on 
he walls to dry, retaining the sign-manual of the artist in the im- 
pressed form of her always outspread hand. ‘The cognizance of the 
Rajah, two fish chained together, frequently appears, especially over 
the gates of public buildings. 
The hundreds of temples and shrines throughout the city are its 
most remarkable feature: sacred bulls and lingams of all sizes, strewed 
with flowers and grains of rice, meet the eye at every turn; and the 
city’s boast is the possession of one million idols, which, of one kind 
and another, I can well believe. The great Hindoo festival of the Holi 
was now celebrating, and the city ‘more than ordinarily crowded ; 
though I regretted the stoppage of business, and especially the shutting 
up of the far-famed jewellers’ shops. Throwing red powder (lac and 
flour), with rose-water, is the great diversion at Holi-time, more childish 
by far than a carnival. 
Through the kindness of my host, E. A. Reade, Esq. (the Commis- 
sioner), I obtained admission to the Bishishar-Kumardil, the “ holiest 
of holies.” It was a small, low, stone building, daubed with red inside, 
and swarming with stone images of Brahminee bulls and lingams, and 
various disgusting emblems. A fat old Brahmin, naked to the waist, 
took me in, but allowed of no followers; and what with my ignorance 
VOL. I. Z 
