CHAPTER XII
BENARES
T did not seem possible that the Ganges banks could ever show such another sight; yet a second and a third morning we rose by starlight, drove through streets all blue and lilac with frost haze, to the ghats where the rising sun again glorified the whole fantastic, picturesque line; turning adobe, sandstone and grimy whitewashed buildings into the richest temples and palaces of dreams, and lighting the faces of the thousands of believers standing in the swirling mud stream, as thousands have stood at sunrise for centuries. Even then, one can figure it out that many thousands shirk their religious duties—a cheering sign in a way—for, if the two thousand temples of Benares with their five hundred thousand idols are tended by eighty thousand priests, the sacerdotal company alone would exceed the crowds we saw on any one morning. The priests are supposed to be driven all day, to have time for nothing but sacred observances, the bathing, buttering, garlanding, tiring, fanning, and tending of the idols, and always to begin the day with the dip in the Ganges. Many of them surely
165
