The architectural beauty of Benares as a city of temples and palaces, and its characteristic features as a sacred, pilgrim city can best be seen by a sail on the river soon after sunrise. The city is built tier above tier on a cliff which stretches along the bank of the river for three miles. From the heights numerous flights of stone steps lead down to the water, and these are thronged by devotees who begin the day by a bath in the Ganges. It is evidently a religious act, for although there are crowds of men of all ages, there is no frivolity and very little conversation. The women keep by themselves, but they have no entirely separate bathing place. As our boat glided along we came to the burning _ghât_, where we paused and saw the flames already lighted about one body. Another body, wound about in red figured cotton, was lifted from the bier and placed on the funeral pyre. It seemed all the more shocking because life had so recently departed that there was none of the rigidity of death, and the limp form might, from all appearance, have belonged to one in sleep. While we lingered the clang of discordant instruments told of the approach of a funeral procession. The body is carried on a rude bier constructed like a ladder, and borne on the shoulders of men who shuffle and jostle along in no very reverent manner. The bearers carry the corpse into the Ganges and leave it there, that the sacred waters may flow over it before cremation. In the early morning we saw these three phases of a Hindu funeral and, sailing on, still another yet more shocking sight was revealed to us, for we caught a glimpse, just under the surface of the water, of a naked, swollen, floating human body, and above it the vultures were hovering. Leaving our boat, we walked a long distance through the narrow winding streets of the city to one of the largest and most frequented temples, where is the famous “Well of Salvation,” into which worshipers throw flowers until there is the most fearful stench rising from this putrid mass of decaying matter, and yet this loathsome stuff the deluded devotees drink, as they believe it will wash away the blackest crimes. Haste and dissatisfaction seemed the predominant mood of every mind.