Identifier: williamhsewardst01sewa (find matches)
Title: William H. Seward's travels around the world
Year: 1873 (1870s)
Authors: Seward, William Henry, 1801-1872 Seward, Olive Risley, 1844-1906
Subjects: Voyages around the world
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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passed the entire river-front in theyacht, we dismissed it and returned through the streets of the city.They are close and narrow, but well paved, and, compared with theChinese cities, excepting Canton, they are clean. The chief templeis that of Siva, the representative of the principle of destructionand reproduction. The dome and the towers are of burnishedgold. Siva is the same round, black stone set in the floor as atCalcutta. Far greater reverence is paid to him here. Access andegress are made almost impossible by the multitude of pilgrims andvotaries, who come into the temples laden with perfumes, fruits,flowers, and urns of holy water. Priests receive these oblationsand appropriate them as perquisites, nor did the holy men disdainto receive some bright silver rupees from our unworthy and pro-fane hands. Three small, gentle, and very pretty sacred whitecows, with wreaths of orange-flowers and roses around their necks,wander at pleasure in the holiest recesses of the temple, among
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KINCOB BROCADE. 383 the worshippers, who feed them with rose-leaves and lotus-flowers. But what a poor apology for human devotion is that of Sivacompared with the exhibition of that sentiment which is presentedto Doorga ! At the temple of the former it is a black stone that ishonored; at that of the Doorga it is the living, moving animal crea-tion, the monkey. Moreover, these monkeys seem to appreciatetheir celestial privileges and honors. They are of all sorts andsizes. We saw them by the thousand gambolling in the courts,racing and chasing through the corridors, and mischievouslylaughing upon the worshippers below from columns and cornices,from balustrades and balconies. Edifices of all sorts, even the dwelling-houses, are stupendousand massive. The basements are used for mechanics and othertenants of low degree. The upper stories, guarded by bars andscreens, are the gorgeous zenanas ; fit family dwellings for a peoplewho, unanimously thinking that the virtue of woman can only besec

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