134 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
of extravagant fable, a vein of morality is frequently to 
be discovered, which would not disgrace the wisest era 
of European civilization. But, though by no means 
deficient in speculative morality, I think there is no 
nation under the sun among whom practical morality 
is so lowly estimated and so little pursued. 
The greatest moral enormities are frequently encou- 
raged by the Hindoos, and, especially when practised 
against strangers to their religion, set down by them 
as among the cardinal virtues ; and it is, perhaps, 
a striking feature in the character of this extraordi- 
nary people, that, at the very fountain-head of their 
religion, whence it is diffused in ten thousand chan- 
nels among the numerous population of Asia, there is, 
perhaps, more practical delinquency to be witnessed 
than in any other city in India. When there is 
pollution at the source, what is to be expected but 
that the stream should augment its defilements as 
it increases in volume ? which is really the case, and 
must continue to be so until those defilements are 
removed — until the fountain-spring be suffered to flow 
onward free and pure as the mountain-torrent, not 
forced into the foul and narrow channels of prejudice, 
fanaticism, and superstition. 
One of the most extraordinary objects to be wit- 
nessed at Benares, and which is generally one of great 
curiosity to the stranger, is a pagoda standing in the 
river; there is nothing to connect it with the shore. 
The whole foundation is submerged, and two of the 
towers have declined so much out of the perpendicular 
as to form an acute angle with the liquid plain be- 
neath them. This pagoda is a pure specimen of an- 
