86 SPORT AND TRAVEL 



tion, and have escaped combustion. Then a new 

 pyre is built and a few moments later another body 

 is similarly disposed of. If the relatives cannot af- 

 ford the three rupees charge which is the minimum 

 for cremation, they simply launch their dead on 

 the river, and the bodies go floating down the sa- 

 cred stream while the bathers continue their ablu- 

 tions undisturbed. At the big burning ghat I saw 

 three funeral fires burning, while a fourth shrouded 

 figure lay on the bank, and as I watched, a fifth was 

 carried in on the shoulders of the undertakers and 

 laid beside the others to wait its turn. 



The greater part of the morning was spent in 

 watching the river-side life of the city, as we rowed 

 slowly past the ghats and the jumbled buildings 

 behind them. One remarks especially the many 

 imposing palaces which at the end of the succession 

 of stone steps rise straight from the water's edge. 

 Just as we at home own villas at the seashore or in 

 the country, so the rich Hindu possesses his palace 

 at Benares, where he may spend a portion of every 

 year in holy contemplation and in sin-purging ablu- 

 tions ; and many of these palaces showed that vast 

 sums had been put into their construction. 



Finally I landed at one of the ghats and climbed 

 up into the crooked, filthy little alley-ways of the 

 town. Here one sees sights which disgust the senses 



