Long before the time of Gautama Hinduism prevailed at Benares, and we have observed its rites were practised side by side with those of Buddhism when the city was visited by two Chinese pilgrims. Some time afterwards it obtained full sway under the form of fanatical devotion to Shiva the Destroyer, and that sway it has maintained down to our day. What Jerusalem is to the Jews; what Mecca is to the Muhammadans; what Rome is to the Roman Catholics--that, and more than that, Benares is to the Hindus. They form by far the largest portion of the population of India, and to them Benares--or as they delight to call it, Kasee the Splendid, the Glorious City--is the most sacred spot on earth. They say, indeed, it is not built on the earth, but on a point of Shiva's trident. They assert that at one time it was of gold, but in this degenerate age it has been turned into stone and clay. In their belief the Ganges is sacred through its entire course, but as it flows past the sacred city its cleansing efficacy is supposed to be vastly increased. The rites performed at Kasee have double merit, and its very soil and air are so fraught with blessing that all who die there go to heaven, whatever their character may be. With this belief diffused among the millions who, differing widely from each other in nationality and language, are devoted to Hinduism, it may be supposed how many eyes are reverently turned towards Kasee, and with what eager steps and high expectations vast numbers resort to it. I have frequently seen persons entering the city, not on foot--that they did not deem sufficiently respectful--but prostrating themselves on the ground, measuring the ground with their bodies, and approaching the sacred shrines. And then, especially on the occasion of great festivals, bands may be seen entering the city, often composed of women--hand-in-hand lest they should lose each other in the crowd--singing the praises of Shiva and the glories of his city. Many aged people come from distant parts of India--the greater number, I believe, from Bengal--to reside and end their days in it, that by becoming Kasseebas (dwellers in Kasee) they may when they die become Baikuntbas (dwellers in heaven). Though Benares be _par excellence_ the sacred city of the Hindus, strange to say they are proportionately fewer than in ten cities of the North-West. According to the census of 1872, there were 133,549 Hindus and 44,374 Mussulmans: that is, a little more than three Hindus to one Mussulman. In the great commercial city of Mirzapore, about thirty miles distant from Benares, there were five Hindus to one Mussulman. The fact thus certified is entirely at variance with the conjecture made by those who look at the crowds bathing at the riverside, and frequenting the temples, and contrast them with the small number seen in the mosques, even on Friday, the Muhammadan weekly day of worship. In the district the Hindus vastly out-number the Muhammadans.