File:Around the world with General Grant- a narrative of the visit of General U.S. Grant, ex-president of the United States, to various countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in 1877, 1878, 1879. To which (14595248048).jpg

Identifier: aroundworldwith02youn (find matches)
Title: Around the world with General Grant: a narrative of the visit of General U.S. Grant, ex-president of the United States, to various countries in Europe, Asia, and Africa, in 1877, 1878, 1879. To which are added certain conversations with General Grant on questions connected with American politics and history
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Young, John Russell, 1841-1899
Subjects: Grant, Ulysses S. (Ulysses Simpson), 1822-1885 Voyages around the world
Publisher: New York : The American News Co.
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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onstant prayer is, Holy Kasi! Would that I could seethe eternal city, favored of the gods! Would that I might dieon its sacred soil ! Benares is the city of priests. Its population, notwithstand-ing Macaulays estimate, is less than two hundred thousand.Of this number from twenty to twenty-five thousand are Brah-mins. They govern the city and hold its temples, wells,shrines, and streams. Pilgrims are always arriving and going,and as the day of General Grants visit fell upon one of theholiest of Indian festivals we found it crowded with pilgrims.Sometimes as many as two hundred thousand come in thecourse of a year. They come to die, to find absolution bybathing in the sacred waters of the Ganges. The name comesfrom a prince named Banar, who once ruled here. The Hin-doo name, Kasi, means splendid. There is no record of thenumber of temples. Not long since one authority countedone thousand four hundred and fifty-four Hindoo temples andtwo hundred and seventy-two Mohammedan mosques. In ad-
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THE TEMPLES OE HEX A RES. IQ(. dition to the temples there are shrines, cavities built in wallscontaining the image of some god, as sacred as temples.Pious rajahs are always adding to the temples and shrines.One of the rulers of Jeypore offered to present one hundredthousand temples, provided they should be commenced and fin-ished in one day. The plan hit upon, says the Rev. Mr.Sherring, who tells the story, was to cut out on blocks ofstone a great many tiny carvings, each one representing a tem-ple. The separate blocks, therefore, on the work being com-pleted, exhibited from top to bottom and on all sides a mass ofminute temples. It is believed that there are a half million ofidols in the city. The effect of the British rule has been to in-crease the idols and temples, for the law of the British givesprotection to all religions, and under this the Hindoo has beenable to rebuild the monuments which the Mohammedan invad-ers pulled down. Aurungzebe, who flourished at the close ofthe sev

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