THE SACRED GANGES 5 



spent and it has returned to its normal beneficent 

 aspect. 



No wonder such a river is regarded as sacred. 

 To the more primitive people it is literally a living 

 person — and a person who may be propitiated, a 

 person who may do them harm if they annoy him, 

 and do them good if they make themselves agree- 

 able to him and furnish him with what he wants. 

 To the cultured Hindus it is an object of the 

 deepest reverence. If they can bathe in its waters 

 their sins are washed away. If after death their 

 ashes can be cast on its broad bosom, they will be 

 secure of everlasting bliss. From perhaps the 

 earliest days of our race, for some hundreds of thou- 

 sands of years, men may have lived upon its banks. 

 For it was in the forests beside great rivers, in a 

 warm and even climate, that primitive men must 

 have lived. They would have launched their canoes 

 upon its waters, and used it as their only pathway 

 of communication with one another. And always 

 they would have looked upon it with mingled awe 

 and affection. Besides the sun it would have been 

 the one great natural object which would attract 

 their attention. Insensibly the sight of that ever- 

 rolling flood must have deeply affected them. They 

 must have come to love it as they beheld it through 

 the greater part of the year. The sight of its de- 

 structive power may have made them recoil for a 

 time in fear and awe. But this would be forgotten 

 as the flood subsided, and the river was again smooth 

 and smiling and passing peacefully along before 

 them. 



So men do not run away from it. They gather 



3 



