The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-06-28

yin I1Idt Hone out could en-
ter. l could see through the door
way, however. The court was filled
with people from all over India They
were OF all classes, some clad in rich
dresses and others in rag They
were from city and country, from all
parts, from the Himalayas and from
south Hindustan.
Connected with this temple is a
courtyard containiner a we'll the water
or which is so holy that he who drinks
It VIII go up to heaven. The water is
ladled out by priests to the pilgrims.
who roy flowers and other things
down into the well as their offerings.
These rot and make the contents
filthy and putried. It smells like a
eggs, but it Is bought by the cupful
and gulped down with the lips smack
ing. When the Mohanmedans once
tried to AXE Benares it is said that
one Of the stone gods Of the Brahmins
jumped into this we'll.
With the Sacred Bulls.
Not far from the Golden Temple is
the Cow Temple, filled with animals,
holy to SILVA. This is more like a
stable than a church. Imagine a
court the size of the ordinary barn
yard with a bandstand in the center.
Let the court be walled around with
great stalls, in hich a hundred sacred
bulls stand. They are white and
do~ve-colored and as clean-limbed as a
Jersey. They have great humps on
their backs, and their ears hang down
like those Of a rabbit. They are as
fat as butter and fatter by far than
the lean pilgrims, who honey about
them. giving them food. Here and
there through the courtyard a bull or
COW moves. munching flowers and
grass handed to it by the pilgrims l
saw one go up the steps to the altar
in front of the god and bite at a
wreath of lowers upon a worshlppers
neck. The Hindoo thought this a
favor of the gods and he rough
Gauges water ana gave it to the bull.
I saw one pretty girl hugging a bull.
She was a slender brown maiden
whose form, worthy to be a model for
Venus, was clad in a single strip OF
dark nav blue cotton. She had a
red cashmere shawl around her mead,
which hid all but the great black eyes.
Her hands and arms were bare ana
in the former she held a garland of
bright yellow flowers, one yard in
length. She brought this to the big
gest and most beautiful bull in the
stables. and ant a prayer as she
handed it to him. The d~oVc-coiored
beast ate the flowers ana as he lie so
she threw her arms around his neck
and gave him a hug. 1t made me
think of Apis, the bull of Memphis,
who was worshiped by the Egyptians,
and also the fair 10, whom Juno turn
ed into q COW a of the ElrtatlonS
of Jupiter.
These sacred cows and bulls are to
De seen everywhere. Ihey are
bovine gentlemen and ladies of leisure
who go about staring into the shops
and crowding human beings out Of the
way. Now and then they visit a fruit
stand or vegetable sellers and take
q bite of such food as they fancy. me
people do not strike them or in-treat
them in any wav. They will not eat
beef and to slaughter cattle would not
only lose them their caste IN TINS
world. but doom them to punishment
for all time to come.
Outside the Golden Temple stood
men bedding flowers for the bulls,
and also necklaces. anklets and other
jewelry for women and men. There
were a score Of beggars, and the lame,
halt and blind were jostled by the
bulls and COWS. One poor fellow, all
skin AMI bones and naked except for
a breech cloth, had lost his arms at
the biceps, and he wagged the red
stumps at me as he nodded his head to
the brass plate on his knee. He was
delighted with the o~ne-fourth Of a
cent which I gave him.
On the Holy Ganges
Benares is holy largely it
lies on the Ganges- That river is more
to the Indian than the Jordan is to the
Christian. If a Hindoo prays within
one hundred miles Of it's banks that
prayer will wipe out his sins of three
past generations, II ne mas ms
head shaved he will have a million
years in Paradise for every hair that
floats off on the stream. Bathing IN
the Ganges washes off sin, and this is
so from it's source, where n river
flows out of the toe Of the god Vishnu,
high I'D in the Himalayas, to where 1t
empties at last In the Bay Of Bengal
There are hundreds Of places along
the Ganges which are especially holy.
Two hundred thousand pilgrims an
nually visit the mouth of the river,
/ raw thousands bathing in it at
Calcutta. Some pilgrims make jour
neys almost from the source to the
mouth, being years on the way. just