Home › Contents › Boats and Boatmen of the Ganges-India

Boats and Boatmen of the Ganges-India

a (173) Improved since the day when the pioneer sanctuaries, to which, over distances of the English merchants wandered greater than from New York to Salt Lake through Hindostan; where now spread City, thousands of human beings are seen indigo, cotton and opium fields was then painfully toiling. Commerce is attracted a wild region, "so beset with thieves" to these festivals chiefly to supply the that, to use General Fitch's words, "the wants of the pilgrims. The middle class of Hindoos take advantage of the local festival to lay in the stock of family clothing for the year.

At Allahabad the fair lasts for a month. The gathering is held on the sandy spot left dry by the receding waters at the junction of the Ganges and the Jumna. Both are sacred rivers, but there is a third more sacred than these, the Sereswuttee, which unites with