BENARES. 
83 
of some traveller — the Abbe Dubois, I think-— a hu- 
mourous division of the Hindoo population into two 
classes, the dupes and the impostors; the former 
embracing all the various castes except one, and the 
latter, the Brahmins, forming that exception. Of the 
scene which Benares exhibits during the Doorga 
Pooja, and other religious festivals, it is altogether 
beyond the power of words to convey any just idea. 
The temples and other buildings, painted and deco- 
rated with flags for the occasion, appear to stand in 
a rolling sea of human beings, so dense is the mass 
of pilgrims which obstructs the narrow streets, and 
spreads itself over every spot of ground where there 
is room for the foot to rest. The deafening shouts 
and screams, and blowing of horns, the overpowering 
heat and sickening effluvia can hardly be acceptable 
to the gods ; they are altogether beyond the ability 
of mortal endurance ; hundreds of lives are lost in 
the press, and, unless dispersed by the hand of timely 
authority, the obnoxious multitude is sure to produce 
a pestilence within the city. 
As the temples are infinitely various in appearance, 
so are the innumerable castes and tribes who fre- 
quent the place; it being not only a rendezvous for 
pilgrims, but the resort of merchants, pedlars, thieves, 
and mendicants, from all quarters of the East, whose 
personal appearance and costume are equally dissimi- 
lar. Let the reader who may wish them enume- 
rated and described run his eye over a map of Asia, 
