Across India; Or, Live Boys in the Far East, Oliver Optic [read along books TXT] 📗

I know you are very patient and long-suffering; and I assure you that I shall not take offence if you look out the windows while I am talking. The Boomtee River is as pretty as it is sinuous. If you write to your friends in the United States about it, you can spell the last syllable t-i, if you prefer; for Indian orthography is not yet controlled by statute, as I hope it will be when we have established an Acad�mie Indienne, such as they have in France. But Benares is my subject, and not spelling.

"Where is Benares? It is four hundred and twenty miles by rail from Calcutta, and is on the left bank of the Ganges. I suppose you know which side that is."

"Of course we do," laughed Mrs. Belgrave. "It is on the left-hand side."

"You have put your foot in it, mother," rallied Louis.

"Into the Ganges?" queried the lady. "I did at Cawnpore, but not here."

"Suppose you were coming up the river in a steamer from Calcutta, which would be the left bank?" asked Louis.

"On my left, of course."

"Then Sir Modava will have to oblige you by locating Benares on both sides of the Ganges, and I don't believe it would be convenient for him to do that," said Louis, laughing at the expense of his mother, who blushed, though she did not see what was wrong, when she realized that she had made a blunder of some kind.

"Better not have said anything," whispered Mrs. Blossom in retaliation; for hitherto she had had a monopoly of all the blunders."

"Will you tell me, Sarah, which is the left bank of a river, for it appears that I don't know," added the lady out loud.

"The left bank of the Ganges is the one Benares is on," replied the worthy woman; and she was greeted with a roar of laughter, and a volley of applause started by the live boys who were making their way across India.

"Quite right, madam!" exclaimed Sir Modava, applauding with the others. "It may be a matter of no particular consequence; but you will excuse me for saying that the left bank is the one on your left as you go down the stream, and not at all as you go up."

"I remember now, for I learned that in my geography when I first went to school; and it is strange that I should have forgotten it," added Mrs. Belgrave.

"We know just where Benares is now," Sir Modava proceeded. "It is the largest city in this part of India with the exception of Lucknow, to which it stands next, or sixth among those of the country, having a population of 219,467. It extends along the Ganges for three miles; and the shore is lined continuously with staircases, called ghats, which lead up to the temples, palaces, and the vast number of houses on the banks of the river. The stream sweeps around the place like a crescent, presenting one of the finest views you ever saw, with the ornamented fronts of dwellings, public offices, and a forest of towers, pinnacles, and turrets. To the Hindus it is the most sacred city known to them.

"When I was a boy I came here for the first time, brought by my father on account of the religious character of the place, if I may call anything idolatrous by such a name. But the city, when you get into it, will disappoint you. It is like Constantinople, very beautiful to look at from the Bosporus, or the Golden Horn; but its dirty, narrow streets disgust you. I am afraid this will be your experience in Benares. You will be obliged to forego the luxury of carriages in making your tours through the place, for the streets are so narrow and crowded that it is impossible to get along with a vehicle. An elephant is equally impracticable, and even in a palanquin your progress would be so slow that you would lose all your stock of patience."

"The city must be 'done' by walking, must it?" asked the commander.

"Whew!" whistled Dr. Hawkes; and the sibilation was repeated by Uncle Moses, for each of them weighed over two hundred and a quarter.

"If the ship were here I would lend you the barge with eight rowers, to enable you to see the sights from the river," suggested Captain Ringgold.

"A steam-launch shall be provided for all the company, and our obese friends shall be provided with stuffed chairs, for the survey of the river scenes; but carriages can be used in some parts of the city, though what you will desire to see can best be observed from the river; and we can land when you wish to see interiors," added Lord Tremlyn.

This interruption was heartily applauded by the Cupids, as the fat gentlemen had been called in Cairo, assisted by all the others.

"The famous Monkey Temple is just out of the city, and that can be reached by carriages," continued Sir Modava. "There are fourteen hundred and fifty Hindu temples, pagodas, and shrines, and two hundred and seventy-two Mohammedan mosques, so that our good friend, General Noury, need not neglect his devotions."

"The good Mussulman never does that, whether there be a mosque at hand or not, for he says his prayers at the proper time, wherever he may be," replied the general.

"I know that some of your people are better Christians than some who bear the name," replied the Hindu gentleman politely. "Benares is so holy, and the Ganges is so holy, that hundreds of thousands visit it as the Mussulmans visit Mecca. Men of wealth, and those who have the means without being rich, come to this city when they feel that they have been seized with a malady likely to prove fatal; for to die here with the Hindu is a passport to eternal happiness. But I am talking too long, though there is much more that might be said; but perhaps it could be better said on board of that launch my friend mentions, and in sight of the temples, towers, and other objects of interest."

In the middle of the afternoon the train arrived at its destination; and the party proceeded in carriages to the western suburb, the location of the cantonment, or English quarter of the city.

CHAPTER XXXIII A STEAMER TRIP UP AND DOWN THE GANGES

Clarke's Hotel, at Secrole, received the tourists, and everything was in readiness for them when they arrived. Lord Tremlyn had announced the coming of himself and his large party, and a person of his distinction and influence could command anything he desired. The rest of the day was given to rest, though in the evening Sir Modava talked to the tourists about the city.

Early the next morning the party were conveyed to the river, where they embarked in a steam-yacht which had been provided for their use. It was more than a launch; for its standing-room would seat the whole company, while an awning was spread over a portion of the upper deck, from which a full view of the shore could be obtained. The city is on the north shore of the river, which has an easterly course in this portion of India, and the houses are packed in about as thickly as they can be.

"This is the Dasasvamedh Ghat," said Sir Modava, with a smile. "I thought you might wish to recall it after you get home to America. I think it is rather pleasant to know the names of places one has visited."

"We could not speak the word now without an hour's practice, and I am sure not one of us will know it when we get to the other side of the Atlantic," said Mrs. Belgrave.

"You can write it down in your diaries."

"We might as well attempt to copy the top of a tea-chest," added Louis.

The ladies were assisted on board of the steamer. The captain was a very gentlemanly Englishman; and he was all devotion to the wants of his passengers, who seated themselves on the promenade deck. The steamer belonged to the government; and she was fitted up in the most comfortable manner, though it was not so gaudy as the craft of a maharajah would have been. The ghat was at the western extremity of the crescent to which Sir Modava had alluded, and from this point the town looked like an amphitheatre.

The river is ordinarily about half a mile wide, but in the season of high water it is double that width. The captain called the attention of the party to the ghat as they receded from it, the broad flight of stairs being a rather wonderful sight to the strangers, though they had seen something of the kind before in Delhi and Cawnpore.

The steps are adorned with small temples with plenty of spires. Near the top of the flight was the Man Munder, the great observatory. Though the building is plain, as a whole, Captain Carlisle pointed out a highly ornamental window, with a profusion of handsome brackets. The stairs on the city side of the river were unlimited as far as the eye could see. Behind them was a forest of spires, domes, and cupolas.

"You ought to have left the ghat before sunrise," said the captain, who was walking up and down the deck, with an eye on the Hindu pilot. "Then you would have been in time to see the sight of the day, for the appearance of the sun is the holy moment for the natives to plunge into the holy river. For miles along the shore the ghats are thronged at the first appearance of the orb of day, and there is a continuous murmur of voices. No matter how cold the water is, they dive in and swim like fishes. You can see a thousand heads in the water along the shore at any moment. Then they support themselves on the surface, and gaze motionless at the sun as it mounts in the sky."

"Are you a sailor, Captain Carlisle?" asked Louis, who thought he was rather poetic for an uneducated man.

"Not as the commander of your ship would understand it, though I was in command of a Thames steamer, and fell into the same business when I came to India," replied the captain, laughing at the question. "My father was a good Baptist; he wanted to make a minister of me, and I was educated far enough to enter the university; but I concluded that I did not like the business, and took to steamboating."

"But aren't the women as religious as the men?" inquired Captain Ringgold.

"More so, if anything. But they come down to the river before sunrise and take their swim. If you had been here this morning you would have seen them coming out of the water just as the men are ready to go in, and you would have observed them in their white garments, dripping like drowned rats. That pagoda you see ahead of us with the bell tower and shining in gilt is the only temple the Buddhists have in Benares."

"We are coming now to the Munikurnika Ghat. It is a five-syllable word, but you can easily pronounce it," said Sir Modava, who thought he would "spell" the captain for a time; and he was quite as familiar with the banks of the Ganges.

"And it is quite musical," added the captain.

"Pronounce u like double o, and the rest of the letters as in English, and you can speak it without choking," said the Hindu gentleman. "But there are some letters in Hindu that have no equivalents in English."

"Moo-ui-koor-ni-ka Ghat," added Louis, pronouncing the word. "But what is it all about?"

"It is the place for burning the dead, such as you saw in Bombay, but on a much larger scale," replied Sir Modava. "You see that it extends a considerable distance. Please keep to the leeward of the smoke, Captain Carlisle."

"That is what I am doing, Sir Modava."

"These funeral pyres are burning all the time, night and day. The people whose bodies are consumed in these fires, and their friends, believe that the souls of the deceased will pass from this spot into paradise, where, if they have not been very great sinners they will be transplanted into the bodies of future Brahmins. Many deceased persons are brought even hundreds of miles to be burned on the Munikurnika by the Ganges, as their sure passport to the realms of bliss."

The obliging captain took the steamer near enough to the ghat to enable