BENARES 83 



To my mind the great fascination about India is 

 the continual novelty one finds as one passes from 

 place to place. One can never become bored as is so 

 easy in European travelling, for no two cities are 

 ever just alike ; each seems to be in a land of its own 

 and to possess its distinctive characteristics, afford- 

 ing to the tourist that continual change of scene 

 which is the greatest charm of travel. But when 

 you pass from Lucknow to Benares you come upon 

 a city which is so absolutely different from anything 

 you have seen before, that you wonder whether it 

 really belongs to our earth and is not a town in 

 some other world, with other people, other forms of 

 architecture, and other manners of living than we 

 are accustomed to. 



Indeed, Benares is not of our world. It comes 

 down to us from an era thousands of years ago, 

 when Buddha adopted it as his home and began to 

 spread his doctrines throughout the East ; but even 

 then it was ancient as a holy city and had seen one 

 religion after another rise and decay within its 

 walls. It is still to-day the holiest city in India, and 

 is the headquarters alike of Buddhism and Brah- 

 minism ; to drink and bathe in the sacred waters of 

 the Ganges, which runs through it, purges the soul 

 of sin, and to die within its precincts insures to 

 believer and infidel alike an immediate and uncon- 



