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India's religions and social characteristics. 231
deeply-wooded jungles, hedges of cactus, grazing herds, and
nestling native villages, was decidedly attractive, though
dulled by sameness. Occasionally broad, rolling ridges
reminded us of our fertile prairie-lands in the West. Though
camels and elephants are pressed into farming-work, humpshouldered
Asian bullocks do most of the plowing, rather a
light scratching of the soil. The flocks of sheep along the
way were, with hardly an exception, black. Shepherds
with bamboo rods, instead of " crooks," tended them.
Northern India produces large quantities of wheat and corn.
The cultivation of the Ganges Valley is of an inferior
kind. This must necessarily continue till the Hindoos
become landholders, owning the proceeds of the fields they
cultivate. Though the vast plains of India have scattered
groves of acacia, guava, mango, palms, and other Oriental
trees, there is a destitution of deep, dense forests, from
the fact that, in past centuries, they were ruthlessly cut, and
the fields tilled to support the over-population of the coimtry.
The telegraph-poles along the way are either of iron
or stone, to prevent destruction by white ants. The prying,
greedy nuisances soon found their way into our trunks.
BENARES THE BLESSED.
Reaching Mogul Serai Junction, we were soon transferred
to the branch-road leading to the river whose waters were
anciently thought to insure eternal life. Tread lightly,
speak softly ; this is the winding Ganges, and that magnificent
and moss-crowned city on the western bank, with its
temples, mosques, palaces, tapering domes, sacred shrines,
and the Golden Temple of Siva, — guardian divinity, — is
Benares, holiest city of the Hindoos !
All sincere religionists are to be respected. What Mecca
is to the Mohammedan, Jerusalem to the Christian, and
Home to the Catholic, Benares is to the Hindoo ; and the
Ganges, that washes its feet, is the Eden river of immortal
life. The grayed pen of antiquity failed to record the
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