If there is anything that strikes one at Kurukshetra--and similar places in India--it is that the Brahmans have clung with wonderful tenacity through the vicissitudes of ages to their sacred _spots_; and that though they have, according to universal belief, enjoyed considerable revenues, they have, through all these ages, done nothing to adorn their sacred places, which owe what temporary embellishment they have to the not too magnificent and not too frequent liberality of individuals. It strikes one also that, with each changing fashion of belief, each rise of a new sect, the Brahmans having willingly accommodated it with a convenient local habitation and have hastened to associate its glories with those of its predecessors. Hence the shrine of Guru Nanak at Kurukshetra, alongside which we shall, no doubt, some day have one in honour of Swami Dayanand, when the Aryan sect is sufficiently grown to impress the Brahmans with its importance; the mere matter of orthodoxy or unorthodoxy being somewhat unimportant. The reason for the wonderful persistence with which the affectionate regard of the Hindus has hovered round their old shrines and holy places for thousands of years, though at first sight rather strange, is not difficult of explanation. _They have a hereditary priesthood_, a priesthood that lives by the proceeds of the shrines, and to whom the shrines are what land is to the cultivator. In this simple fact lies the explanation of the matter, and of other points in Hindu religious history, and probably in the history of other nations with hereditary priesthoods. Successive generations of priests have, for their own subsistence, to attract to the shrine they have inherited successive generations of pilgrims, by keeping alive the old traditions, or inventing new legends to suit the altered tastes of the times. As the weeds that flourish in the lake are lineal descendants of the weeds that grew in the same place time out of mind, so are the Brahmans on the banks of the lake the lineal descendants of the Brahmans who flourished there in times immemorial. As the weeds live on the rank soil and stagnant water of the pond, so live the Brahmans on their wild legends and stale pretensions. Guru Nanak’s _bythuck_--the presence of which on the lake-side led to the above digression--is but a few hundred yards from the west end of Aurangzeb’s bridge and, as there appeared to be nothing of interest on the south side, we crossed over to the island, inspected the Mughal fort and, following the bridge, returned to the principal temple; but before doing so we managed to secure a few photographs of the pretty scene on the east bank as viewed from the bridge.