Offerings of grain, rice, and other food, as well as money donations made by more wealthy worshippers, are gathered in a stone box, and are distributed daily to the beggars at the entrance. The figure of the goddess Anpurna represents a charming creature decked out with gold and silver ornaments to fascinate the worshippers. This temple was erected in 1725 by the Rajah of Poona. It has a tower and a dome, and stands in the centre of a quadrangle, in the four corners of which stand four smaller shrines.
The temples of Sakhi-Binayaka, Sukreswar, Bhaironath, are all pretty much in the same style as those already described, and do not call for special notice. We now come to the shrine dedicated to Sika, the goddess of small-pox, whom Hindoos pay most particular court to, in order, no doubt, to preserve themselves from that disease—their faith in Sika being quite as great as ours is in Dr. Jenner’s system of inoculation. It may here be worth mentioning that small-pox is quite a recognised complaint throughout India; and, indeed, in exceptional periods when, owing to atmospheric influences, its spread exceeds the usual course, is not thought much more of than any other disease. There are, certainly, in large cities like Calcutta, Bombay, &c., a small-pox hospital, but isolation is seldom if ever resorted to. Whilst we were in Calcutta, one of my children went to school in a house divided into flats. The teacher resided on the first floor. The family occupying the ground floor had two cases of small-pox, which did not hinder any of the pupils from attending the school, although they had to pass through the hall, and unavoidably come in daily contact with members of the family of the patients.
I may also mention that in many instances during the Calcutta Exhibition, where natives used to throng the turnstiles for admission, we called the attention of the police to several people whose appearance denoted visible signs of that dreadful malady. The most striking instance, and, to my mind, the most shocking, was that of a hawker of sweetmeats, who used to squat in front of the main entrance, carrying on a roaring trade with the lower class of native visitors to the Exhibition. I noticed that his face, neck, and gradually the whole of his body, was covered with pustules. When I called the attention of a medical man to this, he said, “Well, I think it is time that this fellow was sent to the Hospital,” and we had him removed at once.
At least one in fifty of the natives who paid for admission had purchased sweetmeats from that fellow, received change, which was handed to us at the turnstiles, still clammy with the perspiration of the hands of a man in the third or fourth stage of smallpox.
This in the very heart of a city with a million of inhabitants. Yet the disease does not spread, and is not thought half as much of as we do of measles or scarlatina. I cannot but think that it is owing to several causes—first, the innate cleanliness of the Hindoo race, who wash their bodies several times a day; secondly, to the almost constant working of the pores of the skin, caused by the peculiar heat of the climate; and last, though not least, I think that infection is carried amongst Europeans by the woollen texture of their garments, bed covers, hangings, &c., whereas the natives of India never use any covering other than cotton or linen, and very little of that even. My theory may be wrong, but the fact remains; not only relating to smallpox, but to cholera or typhoid fever, which are permanent in India, but never thought much of by natives.
VIII.
BENARES—THE SACRED CITY.
IF one wished to describe all the temples or places of worship in Benares it would fill a volume. Like picture galleries in the Italian cities, so are temples here—one day at them is quite enough. There seems to be a place of worship dedicated to every whim or fancy of the worshippers. Amongst the many, I will quote the temple of Kameshwar, the “God of Desires,” whose duty is to grant all the wishes of the worshippers. The wishes of mankind being innumerable, it is not surprising that Kameshwar has a legion of worshippers, and I should say his hands are full if he grants one-thousandth-part of the prayers addressed to him.