Douglas Island news., 1910-08-31
AROUND THE WORLD Dr.. Simpsons Story of His Visits to the Countries of the
 Old World
Continued from last week.

Benares has about quarter of a million inhabitants and is nearly 800 miles from Calcutta. Most of the trip is made by night. You carry your own bedding in India, they give you place to put it and charge you nothing. You like it when you become accustomed to it. Benares is on the Ganges and has been the sacred capital of the Hindoos as far back as history goes. 1t is also sacred city for the Buddhists, for Baddha taught here some years. Most of the celebrated writers and philoso- phers among the ancient Hindoos lived here and it was great literary center for centuries. The Ganges is sacred river, having originally flowed from the head of one of the gods. This seems absurd, yet you find the same teaching among the Chinese and Japanese as we'll as among the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. will not specify instances or examples. Capt. Joe Cummings will give them to you if you wish.
 Over million pilgrims visit Benares annually. When they make circuit of the holy district (45 miles longl, re- ceive a certificate, take bath in the Ganges and deposit their prayers and little money at the various shrines and temples they are pretty we'll fixed for the future. There are over thousand temples here. The golden temple is probably the finest. The roof is copper, covered with gold plate. The inside is very rich, but not clean; in fact, l consider it dirty. They have sacred bull and bis COWS inside and as they roam everywhere over the iDlaid marble floor, the rich altar and the golden images, you can imagine. When She sacred bull is consecrated for some temple he is married and given four COWS and they all live together in a temple that may have cost over a mil lion dollars. 1t is very serious thing 50 kill COW or eat any part of one, meat, blood or fat, and person who does so loses his caste and for millions of years comes to this earth as an in- sect, bat or something vile. The q1as tion of caste is difficult subject. There were originally four-the Bramhin or priest, the soldier, the farmer and Sud- ras. The Sudras were the lowest and were never born again. There are now probably 200 castes. The others were all born again; the good returned to earth soon, those who had not been good were longer time before they re- turned and when they did were on a lower plane than they had occupied in the previous existence. If they were very bad they might turn up as toad. It is common thing for man to come back as snake. He will hang about the house where he has lived and bring it good lack. If misfortune threatens he warns the family in some way. An Euglishman told me that one day a snake came into his office where he bad nearly twenty clerks at work. He killed it and every Hindoo clerk left. They knew that he had killed the father or near relative of some one of them and he had all kinds of trouble getting them back to work That is why there are thousands of native deaths every year from snake bites and why the na- tives do not want to kill snakes in spite of the rewards offered by the govern ment. Crocodiles, monkeys and ele. plants are also sacred.
 The golden temple is sacred to Siva,