Benares

a city of India. It is situated in the eastern part of old Hindustan on the north bank of the Ganges, about 400 miles northwest from Calcutta and the sea. Seen from the Ganges, Benares occupies a vast amphitheater of hills. The city is a mass of hovels, narrow streets, palaces, mosques, minarets, and domes. The entire river frontage is faced with stone. Expensive river-stairs of freestone lead up from the water's edge to pagodas and splendid temples.

Benares is the most sacred city of the Hindus. There are over a thousand temples. Wealthy Hindus from all over the Indian Empire still maintain town residences at Benares. The Mohammedan wants to see Mecca that his salvation may be secure. The Hindu desires to die at Benares that he may enter at once upon a life of happiness. A multitude of persons press down the ghats, for so the landings are called, to bathe in the sacred Ganges and to carry away the sacred water for the ablutions of the afflicted elsewhere. A horde of beggars with sores beyond description solicit alms from their more fortunate countrymen or beset the stranger with importunity.

Benares is the center of a productive district. Sugar and indigo are important products. There are local manufactures of brass work, shawls, silk goods, embroidered cloth, and filagree work.

The population in 1901 was 209,331.

The internal streets are so winding and narrow that there is not room for a carriage to pass, and it is difficult to penetrate them even on horseback. Their level is considerably lower than the ground-floors of the houses, which have generally arched rows in front, with little shops behind them; and above these they are richly embellished with verandahs, galleries, projecting oriel windows, and very broad overhanging eaves supported by carved brackets. The houses are built of Chanar stone, and are lofty-none being less than two stories high, most of them three, and several of five or six stories. The Hindus are fond of painting the outside of their houses a deep red color, and of covering the most conspicuous parts with pictures of flowers, men, women, bulls, elephants, and gods and goddesses in all the multiform shapes known in Hindu mythology. The number of temples is very great; they are mostly small, and are placed in the angles of the streets, under the shadow of the lofty houses. Their forms are not ungraceful, and many of them are covered over with beautiful and elaborate carvings of flowers, animals, and palm branches, rivalling in richness and minuteness the finest specimens of Gothic or of Grecian architecture.-Britannica.