78 GANGES VALLEY. Chap. III. 



sins of the inhabitants were punished by its transmutation 

 into stone, and latterly into mud and thatch: whoever 

 enters it, and especially visits its principal idol (Siva 

 fossilised) is secure of heaven. 



On the 18th I left Benares for Ghazepore, a pretty town 

 situated on the north bank of the river, celebrated for its 

 manufacture of rose-water, the tomb of Lord Cornwallis, 

 and a site of the Company's stud. The Rose gardens sur- 

 round the town: they are fields, with low bushes of the 

 plant grown in rows, red with blossoms in the morning, all 

 of which are, however, plucked long before midday. The 

 petals are put into clay stills, with twice their weight of 

 water, and the produce exposed to the fresh air, for a night, 

 in open vessels. The unskimmed water affords the best, 

 and it is often twice and even oftener distilled; but the 

 fluid deteriorates by too much distillation. The Attar is 

 skimmed from the exposed pans, and sells at 1 0/. the rupee 

 weight, to make which 20,000 flowers are required. It is 

 frequently adulterated with sandal-wood oil. 



Lord Cornwallis' mausoleum is a handsome building, 

 modelled by Flaxman after the Sybil's Temple. The 

 allegorical designs of Hindoos and sorrowing soldiers with 

 reversed arms, which decorate two sides of the enclosed 

 tomb, though perhaps as good as can be, are under any 

 treatment unclassical and uncouth. The simple laurel and 

 oak-leaf chaplets on the alternating faces are far more 

 suitable and suggestive. 



March 21. — I left Ghazepore and dropped down the 

 Ganges ; the general features of which are soon described. 

 A strong current four or five miles broad, of muddy water, 

 flows between a precipitous bank of alluvium or sand on 

 one side, and a flat shelving one of sand or more rarely 

 mud, on the other. Sand-banks are frequent in the river, 



