Shrines and idols multiply by the roadside, and tanks
innumerable afford bathing and purifying facilities for the far-travelled
pilgrims who swarm the road in thousands. As the heathen devotee
approaches nearer and nearer to Benares he feels more and more
devotionally inclined, and these tanks of the semi-sacred water of the
Ganges Valley happily afford him opportunity to soften up the crust of
his accumulated transgressions, preparatory to washing them away entirely
by a plunge off the Kamnagar ghaut at Benares. Many of the people are
trudging their way homeward again, happy in the possession of bottles of
sacred water obtained from the river at the holy city. Precious liquid
this, that they are carrying in earthenware bottles hundreds of weary
miles to gladden the hearts of stay-at-home friends and relations.
At every tank scores of people are bathing, washing their clothes, or
scouring out the brass drinking vessel almost everyone carries for
pulling water up from the roadside wells. They are far less particular
about the quality of the water itself than about the cleanliness of the
vessel. Many wells for purely drinking purposes abound, and Brahmans
serve out cool water from little pahnee-chowkees through window-like
openings. Wealthy Hindoos, desirous of performing some meritorious act to
perpetuate their memory when dead, frequently build a pahnee-chowkee by
the roadside and endow it with sufficient land or money to employ a
Brahman to serve out drinking-water to travellers.
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