The Granite Foundations Of Many Houses Are Laid
Almost In The Bed Of The River, And So, During Four Months Of The
Year, They Are Half Covered With Water.
And behind this handful
of scattered houses, higher up the mountain slope, crowd snow-white,
stately temples.
Some of them are low, with thick walls, wide
wings and gilded cupolas; others rise in majestical many-storied
towers; others again with shapely pointed roofs, which look like
the spires of a bell tower. Strange and capricious is the
architecture of these temples, the like of which is not to be seen
anywhere else. They look as if they had suddenly dropped from
the snowy abodes of the mountain spirits above, standing there
in the shelter of the mother mountain, and timidly peeping over
the head of the small town below at their own images reflected in
the pure, untroubled waters of the sacred river.
Here the Ganges is not yet polluted by the dirt and the sins of
her many million adorers. Releasing her worshipers, cleansed from
her icy embrace, the pure maiden of the mountains carries her
transparent waves through the burning plains of Hindostan; and
only three hundred and forty-eight miles lower down, on passing
through Cawnpore, do her waters begin to grow thicker and darker,
while, on reaching Benares, they transform themselves into a kind
of peppery pea soup.
Once, while talking to an old Hindu, who tried to convince us that
his compatriots are the cleanest nation in the world, we asked him:
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