The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1889-05-30

of Egypt dragged wooden pIows across the
land, and all, save the railroad with its Reat
modern stations and its telegraph wires hung
on iron poles, was of an age whose history has
long since been made. India is one of the
oldest countries in the world. 1t had dozen or
more civilizations before we Anglo-Saxon people
began to be, and it had mighty cities hundreds
of years before the Greeks had begun to make
history. This city of Benares was an old town
at the time when Helen eloped with Paris of
Troy, and it was city 500 years before Romu-
lusand Remus were sucked by that Roman She
wolf, and grew up to found Rome. Three thou
sand years ago it was famous and 1T is to-day
the center of Hndoo religious life and culture
Wave after wave of religious thought have
passed over it. The great Buddha founded his
religion within a hundred miles of it, and
Benares was the first city to which he went out
to preach. The ruins of Sarnath, where he
first turned the wheel of the law" are within
five miles of the city, and 1t was from here that
Buddhism spread outward, oyeTran Mongolia,
China and Japan, and existing through the
ages has still more than one-third of the world
among its followers. 1t has been well weeded
out Of India, but it is stronger than ever in the
other countries of Asia. 1t had its run here,
and for time crowded out Brahminism, but
during the Middle Ages it was overthrown in
India, and this town again became the capi-
tai of the Hindoo religion. 1t is so to-day.
What Jerusalem is to the Christian, what
Mecca is to the Mohammedan, Benares is to
the Hindoo Any Hindoo who dies within 10
miles of it is thought to have a sure passport to
Heaven, and the wealthiest of the East In
dians have residences here to which they ex-
pect to come when about TO die. Pilgrimages
are made here from all over India, and the
city is to the Hindoos sort of a religious
wateringplace.
Benares is a town of the size of Cleveland
or Washington, spread out upon a rich fiat
plain, through which the mighty Ganges River
runs. The Ganges washes the temples of the
city, which line the river banks for miles, and
rising up from it and extending backwards
there is jumble of one, two and three-story
houses, cut up by lanes so narrow that carri-
age can scarcely drive through them, and filed
with the eurons mass which makes up native
Indian town. Much of the city is taken up
with bazars, and these white plastered walls
are pierced by the box-like caves, open at the
front, and not large enough for q man to stand
upright within them. They are about two
feet above ground, and on their brick floors,
upon a mat, squats cross-legged a black
skinned man in tuTban and gown with various
kinds of wares piled all around him.
In many of these caves men are working at
the various trades, but you will find the busi-
ness part of the town as quiet the city of the
dead until O'Clock every afternoon. Religion
is the business of Benares, and before break
fast, when a great mist hangs over the city,
and in the Winter, when the cold, raw winds
blow down from the Himalayas, every man.
woman and child in the HindOo city goes down
to the Ganges to worship in the holy stream
and to perform his religious ablutons before
| he goes back to breakfast. After bathing he