If the visitor is bent on obtaining a full impression of the work continually carried on in Benares, he will make his way into the city from one of the principal bathing-places. He will speedily find himself in long narrow streets, with lofty stone houses on either side. The buildings are of hewn stone, and of the most substantial description. They have for the most part a narrow doorway, opening into a quadrangle, around which are the apartments of the inmates. The streets are so narrow that through some of them a vehicle cannot be taken, and in others conveyances pass each other with difficulty. There are parts of the narrower streets and lanes on which the sun never shines. In the few cases where houses on both sides of the street opposite each other belong to one proprietor, there is at the top a bridge by which the inmates pass from one to the other.
Not the houses, however, but the temples, secure the chief attention of the visitor. They are seen on every side. Numerous though they be, they are not sufficient to meet the demands of the people. At every few steps objects of worship meet your view. In niches of the walls are little images, so worn by the weather and by the water poured on them by worshippers that it is difficult to determine what they are intended to represent. At your feet, close to the walls, you see misshapen stones which are regarded as sacred. As you proceed you find yourself accompanied by a crowd who have bathed, and who are going to complete their morning worship by acts of obeisance to their gods. They are seen, as they walk, bowing their heads and folding their hands before the sacred objects that line their way. Every now and then one of a party will raise the shout "_Mahadeo jee kee jae!_"--("Victory to the Great God"), that is to Shiva, to whom this title is given; and the shout is taken up and repeated by others till the street resounds. It has occurred to me that this is done with peculiar force when Europeans are within hearing.
You speedily find yourself at the principal temple of Benares--the temple of Bisheshwar, sacred to Shiva under this name, which means _Lord of All_. This temple is in the midst of a quadrangle, covered in with a roof; over it are a tower, a dome, and a spire. The tower and dome glitter in the sun like masses of burnished gold, and on this account it is called the Golden Temple. Natives will tell you that it is covered with plates of solid gold, but in fact it is merely gilded with gold leaf, spread over plates of copper overlaying the stones beneath. Under the dome is a belfry in which nine bells are suspended, and these are so low that they can be tolled by the hand of those who frequent the temple. We are told that the temple, including the tower, is fifty-one feet in height. "Outside the enclosure is a large collection of deities, raised upon a platform, called by the natives 'The Court of Mahadeo.'" Though the gods in the Hindu books are represented as continually quarrelling with each other, and their devotees take up their quarrels, not only at the temple of Bisheshwar, but throughout the city which is regarded as Shiva's own, they are seen side by side, as in perfect amity, and there is not a single god who does not secure the special devotion of some worshippers. It is, however, required of all who dwell in Kasee, or frequent it, to acknowledge that Mahadeo is entitled to supreme homage, and that to him in the first instance obeisance must be made. The symbol of Shiva, or Mahadeo, which is found wherever he is worshipped, is the _Linga_, a conical stone, which does not in itself suggest any impure notion, but which is intended to be a vile representation. In this famous temple this conical stone receives special honour. There, too, are figures of Shiva himself in all his hideousness, with his three eyes, covered with ashes, and his eyes inflamed with intoxicating herbs. Outside the temple there is a figure cut in stone of a bull seven feet high, sacred to the god, as this is his favourite animal for riding. Within the quadrangle there is a well called _Gyan Bapee_, the well of knowledge, to which it is said the god betook himself when he was expelled from his former temple by the bigot Emperor Aurungzeb. On this account the well is deemed specially sacred. It is surmounted by a handsome low-roofed colonnade with forty pillars. It is covered with an iron grating, in which there is an aperture for small vessels to be let down into it, which when full are drawn up, and the water thus drawn is highly prized. As from day to day a large quantity of flowers are thrown into it, it may be supposed how horrible its water and how offensive its smell; it is a wonder the people are not poisoned by it.