Benares is built on the left bank of the Ganges, and extends in a crescent shape three miles and a half along the bank, and a little more than a mile inward. The most imposing view is from a boat slowly dropping down the stream in the early morning--the earlier the better, especially if it be the hot season, as then the people betake themselves to the river in greater numbers than at any other time. Travellers in many lands who have seen this view, have declared it to be one of the most remarkable sights of the kind which the world presents. Photographic and pencil pictures of Benares have appeared in illustrated newspapers, in periodicals and books, and give a more vivid and correct impression than can be conveyed by a verbal description. These pictures can, however, be better understood when those who look at them are furnished with information which no picture can afford. The right bank of the Ganges at Benares is very low, and is always flooded when the river rises; but the left bank, on which the city stands, is in many parts more than a hundred feet high. The river sweeps round this high bank. The city is connected with the river by flights of stone steps, called "ghats." This word ghat often meets the reader of books on India. It has various meanings. It means a mountain-pass, a ferry, a place on the riverside where people meet, and, as is the case at Benares, the steps which lead down to the river. Two small streams enter the Ganges at Benares--on the southern side the Assi, on the northern side the Burna. Some have supposed that the city has received its name from lying between these two rivulets--Burna, Assi, making the word Burunassi, Benares; but this derivation is more than doubtful. Others maintain the word comes from a famous rajah called Bunar; but this, too, is a mere conjecture. [Sidenote: A TRIP ON THE RIVER.]