These pilgrims are not all beggars or in rags. Now and then a gaudily dressed rajah may be seen, with a long line of attendants, wending his steps towards the river's front. Infirm old men and little children, crazy looking fakirs and comely youths, boys and girls, people of all ages and both sexes, were represented in the motley groups who went for moral purification to these muddy waters. There is a singular mingling of races also, for these people do not by any means speak one tongue. They are from the extreme north and the extreme south of India, while the half-starved vagrants of central India could not make themselves understood by either. A common purpose moves them, but they cannot express themselves in a common language. Pilgrims are here from Tibet and Cashmere, the far-off Himalayan country as well as from Tuticorin on the Indian Ocean. Numberless idols and symbols of the most vulgar and loathsome character abound all over the town, and along the river's front, before which men and women bow down in silent devotion. Idolatry is but the synonym of impurity, and is here seen in its most repulsive form. The delusion, however, is perfect, and these poor creatures are, beyond a doubt, terribly in earnest.
The people grovel in this idolatrous spirit, animals forming the principal subjects of worship,--such as bulls, snakes, monkeys, and pigeons. One of the peculiar temples of the city is devoted solely to the worship of monkeys, where hundreds of these mischievous animals find a luxurious home, no one ever interfering with their whims, except to feed and to pet them. This temple contains a singular altar, before which devotional rites are performed by believing visitors, who also bring food offerings for the monkeys. One of the animals during our visit was misbehaving himself, considering that he was a veritable god: rolling, tossing about, and holding on to his stomach with both paws, while he cast his eyes in an agonized manner upwards, and howled dolefully. In plain English his godship had eaten too many bon-bons and sweetmeats, and was paying the penalty from which even sacred monkeys are not exempt. Another, evidently the mother of twins, ran about with one under each arm, now and then stopping at convenient places to nurse them after a fashion ludicrously human. Adjoining the temple is a large water tank in which the monkeys are fond of bathing, their pranks in the water affording much amusement.