About three o'clock in the afternoon the train halted at a station called Mogul Serai, where our friends were to change carriages for Benares. A branch line seven miles in length runs from Mogul Serai to the bank of the river opposite Benares, so that in less than half an hour from the time of leaving the through train Doctor Bronson and the youths were in front of the Holy City. The East Indian Railway Company constructed its line with as few curves as possible; and instead of bending it in order to serve the principal cities in the valley of the Ganges, it connects them, where necessary, by branches. Thus there is a branch from the main line to Benares, another to Agra, another to Delhi, and another to Moorshedabad. Doctor Bronson was told by one of the officials of the company that the plan had worked to their entire satisfaction, and they were confident it had materially reduced the expenses of management and the running of the trains.
The Doctor had telegraphed to the principal hotel of Benares to have a carriage at the station, and, as soon as the train stopped, the runner of the house sought them out and presented a card from his employer. The baggage was soon arranged, and in a few minutes the boys were on the bank of the Ganges, and looking at the curious line of temples and bathing-steps that form the water-front of Benares.
[CHAPTER XXIX.]
SIGHTS IN BENARES.—THE MONKEY TEMPLE.—SARNATH.—BUDDHISM.
They crossed the river on a bridge of boats, and the Doctor informed his young companions that in times of high-water the boats are removed, for fear they may break away and be lost, and the crossing is made by means of a ferry-boat. The front of the city along the river is about three miles in extent, and as one looks at it from the other side there is an almost unbroken view of temples, towers, minarets, palaces, and ghauts, or broad stairways, leading down to the water. The river is about fifty feet deep by 2000 in width, and in time of flood rises thirty or forty feet and increases its width to fully half a mile. The city is on a cliff seventy or eighty feet above the river, and the ghauts rise from the edge of the stream to the crest of the cliff; they were originally magnificent structures, but are now broken in many places, in consequence of the washing away of their foundations.
The buildings that rise on the summit of the cliff are of many styles of architecture, as they owe their origin to several different centuries and epochs. Many of them are spacious palaces, erected by wealthy princes who came here occasionally to bathe in the sacred river and wash away their sins. They are interspersed with temples and mosques, and altogether they present a magnificent panorama. An American traveller has given a fine description of the front appearance of Benares in the following:
"When it is recollected that the buildings above are a hundred feet or more long, and four or five stories high; that the ghauts are eighty feet in height, and are themselves constructions of which any city might be proud; that this row of palaces, temples, and ghauts extends for two miles along the river bank, worthily terminated by the mosque of Aurengzebe, with its graceful minars, and the whole scene was lighted up by an Eastern sun, bringing out the gaudy colors of the dress of the people and the gilded ornaments of the mosques and temples, the reader may perhaps understand and pardon the enthusiasm excited in me by the splendid architectural effect of this river front, which cannot be paralleled or surpassed by any similar scene in India, or in the world."