GUNGOOTREE, THE SACRED SOURCE OF THE GANGES. 67 serve the creature with the worship which belongs to God alone. Thus the Ganges is worshipped, while He who formed it is not thought of. From Gungootree, its mountain source, to its mouth, where it enters the sea, the Hindus pay it the most wonderful veneration. The touch of its water, nay, the very sight of it, is supposed to take away sin. Its very mud is considered a remedy for all diseases. Drowning in it is an act of great merit; and thousands of sick people cause themselves to be carried to the river, that they may die on its banks. In the courts of justice, Hindus coming forward as witnesses have been sworn on its water, as the most sacred form which could be used to bind them to speak the truth. Gunga is said to be a goddess, the daughter of mount Himavut, and all castes worship her. Great festivals are held in honour of Gunga at different places along the river-at Saugor island, where the river meets the sea, and, beside several intermediate places, at Hurdwar, where it leaves the mountains and enters the plain country of India. The festival at Saugor island is held in January, when thousands of Hindoos assemble, some of them from a distance of 500 or 600 miles. There crowds upon crowds of men, women, and children— high and low, young and old, rich and poor-may be seen bathing in the water, and worshipping Gunga by bowing and making salaams, and spreading their offerings of rice, flowers, &c., on the shore, for the goddess to take when the tide arrives. Men not only sprinkle themselves with the water, and daub themselves with the mud, but carry them hundreds of miles on their shoulders. Formerly, people used to give themselves and their infants to the sharks and alligators, but this is now forbidden. How sad to think that God's merciful arrangements for the good of man should be abused to such sinful purposes! Hurdwar is also supposed to be peculiarly holy, and there, for generations, Hindu pilgrims have been in the habit of going, to bathe in the stream just as it frees itself from the mountains. This fair is in the month of April. Numbers of persons come to it, not only to bathe, but to buy and sell and get gain. The roads are crowded with thousands of travellers-on elephants, camels, bullocks, horses, and on foot-all shouting, as they pass the pagodas, "Mahadeo Bol!" At the river-side immense crowds may be seen thronging down the ghaut or stairs, so as to bathe in the river at the most suitable moment. Formerly, a narrow passage led from the main street to the ghaut. In this the crush used to be dreadful; and in one day, on one occasion, no fewer than 700 persons lost their lives. But the poor Hindu is taught to believe that the higher he can climb toward the source of the river, the nearer he approaches toward true happiness; and, not content with a pilgrimage to Hurdwar, he sets forward on his perilous journey to Gungootree. Bad as the way is, through rocks and snow, where the dwelling 68 GUNGOOTREE, THE SACRED SOURCE OF THE GANGES. place of man is not to be found, nor supplies for his use, it is made still more dreadful to him by superstitious stories of a poisonous wind, which is said to blow over the highest ridge from noxious plants. Still he presses on-now over flinty, pointed stones, often so loose that they seem about to give way under his feet-now he has to climb from cliff to cliff-sometimes by ladders he has to mount the face of a rock-sometimes over a frail spar to cross fearful chasms; but although the great body of the pilgrims come no further than Hurdwar, there are some in whom superstitious feelings are so strong that they turn not back. At length, from a height, two miles from Gungootree, the sacred spot is seen, and the drooping spirits of the pilgrim are cheered; until his foot stands upon the threshold of this wildest of glens, around which are heaped piles of pointed rocks, and peaked mountains crested with snow. There, in this lonely place, is to be seen the Ganges, its shallow waters murmuring over a bed of shingles, while here and there, in a little soil, some small cedars grow by the river's side, the margin of which is strewed with masses of rock. Its source is some distance higher up, where it comes forth, not from a cow's mouth, as the Hindus fable, but from a low arch at the foot of a great mass of frozen snow, nearly 300 feet high. On a piece of rock, about twenty feet higher than the river's bed, stands a small temple of stone, containing small statues of Gunga and other Hindu gods. There are also houses for the Brahmins who have charge of the temple, and a few sheds for pilgrims. Here the pilgrim bathes, bows himself before the temple, marks his forehead, and goes through his other forms.* Alas! they have no more virtue at Gungootree than at Hurdwar. The worshipper is not made "perfect, as pertaining to the conscience." He is the same slave of sin that he had been before. He pays his fee to the Brahmin, and departs to boast to his own countrymen that he has performed the pilgrimage to Gungootree, and either to feel in himself the consciousness that it has done him no good, or, if he thinks himself to be the better for it, to be in a worse state than he was before. Blessed be God! we need not to travel on pilgrimage that we may find the true river of God—the true waters of life, in which we may "wash, and be clean," and of which we may drink and be refreshed. "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God:" there is "a fountain opened... for sin and for uncleanness" there are waters which heal wherever they flow, and give life to every thing they touch. They gush forth from the Rock of ages: "this is He that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ." It is not by change of place, but by change of mind, we shall reach Him: it is not by the feet of the body, but by the faith *This is the scene represented in our Frontispiece. of the heart, that we shall climb up to Him. "Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord," and in Him the weary and heavy laden shall find rest. In Jesus the love of God is made known to sinners, and gushes forth from Him who "dwelleth in the light which no man can approach unto," to gladden and make fertile the desert wastes of this world. SINDE. SINDE is a part of India which was conquered by England about seven years ago. It is watered by a large river called the Indus, the sources of which, like those of the Ganges, are amongst the snowy mountains called the Himalayas. As the summer advances, and the snows begin to melt, the waters of the river are greatly increased, and, overflowing the banks wherever they are low, cover the surrounding country for many miles. As the Indus approaches the sea it separates into many channels. Its waters are so loaded with mud and clay, that the sea is discoloured by them three miles from land. Opposite its different mouths numberless brown specks may be seen, which are called "pit" by the Natives. They are round globules filled with water, and covered with a brown skin: they give an oily appearance to the water. It is thus that the inundations of the river manure the lands. A slime is left behind, so rich that the ground will give regularly two crops every year, and sometimes three. The Natives can raise wheat, barley, &c., as we do; but there are many things which we cannot grow that the rich soil of Sinde produces abundantly, as rice, cotton, sugar, &c. Some of the people are occupied in the cultivation of the land. They make use of the one-humped camel in their farming worka most useful and hardy animal, wonderfully patient of thirst. The finer camels are used for the saddle, carrying generally two persons, the rider and his attendant. The Šindians also keep buffaloes in great numbers in the swampy tracts, where they may be seen wallowing in the mud, with their heads just raised above the water. Others of the people are occupied on the water. They are called Mianis, and are the boatmen and fishermen of the Indus. Some of the boats used on the river are not unlike a Chinese junk. They are very large, so as to be like so many floating houses, in which boatmen transport their wives and families, kids and fowls. These boats are called Doondies, and are flat-bottomed. The boatmen will wade in the water all the day. They swim and sport about, coming back now and then to the boat to drink bang-an intoxicating liquor made of the seeds and stalks of hemp-or to smoke. Their pipes are very large. They are placed on stands, made of a large piece of earthenware, and are too heavy to be lifted. When one of the crew wishes to smoke, he goes to the stern to inhale the weed, which is mixed with opium. There is a fish called the pullah to be found in the Indus: it is about the size of a mackarel, and tastes like a salmon. It is only found from January to April, and never goes higher than a certain part of the river, where there is a rocky island called Bukkur, on which a fort is built. The Sindians say that the pullah goes there to do honour to a great Mahomedan who is buried there, and that he never turns his tail to the holy place. The mode of catching the fish is very curious. Each fisherman provides himself with a large earthen vessel, open at the top, and somewhat flat. On this he places himself so as to keep the mouth of the vessel closed with his stomach. This buoys him up, as he paddles with his hands and feet into the middle of the stream. He has a net made like a pouch, fixed to the end of a pole about fourteen feet long: this he pushes down under him into the water. A THOUGHT FOR CHRISTIANS: 71 As the pullah always swims against the stream, the fisherman floats down the current, which, meeting the net, keeps it open, and the pullah swims into it. There is a check-string attached to the net, the other end of which the man holds in his hand, and the jerk of this tells him when a fish is caught. He immediately closes the net with the string, and hauls it up. In his girdle he carries a short dagger, with which he kills the fish, and then puts it into his jar, and so goes on fishing until he has caught enough for his purpose. These poor people are all Mahomedans. This false religion sprung up about twelve centuries ago. Mahomed, the author of it, was an Arab. He gave out that he was the true prophet of God, and set aside the Gospel of Christ, giving men, instead of the Bible, a book of lies called the Korân. He put himself at the head of armies, and prevailed by the sword; and so this false religion extended itself. It is a very unholy religion; for it tells men they may indulge their passions, and yet, if they are Mahomedans, go to what Mahomed calls Paradise, but which, as he describes it, is as unholy as the persons who are to find entrance into it. The Mahomedans are very strict in the forms of religion. Their places of worship are called mosques. Each mosque has a minaret attached to it, which is a slender shaft or pillar, with a gallery at the top of it. Here the criers, or muezzin, go up three times a day to proclaim the hour of prayer. They chant forth words such as these-" God is supreme! God is supreme! I bear witness that there is no God but God. I bear witness that Mahomed is the apostle of God." Immediately, all within hearing of the sound stop their employments, and, turning their faces toward Mecca, a city in Arabia where Mahomed was born, offer up their prayers the fisherman stops his net, the boatman his labour of dragging the vessel against the stream, and, getting on shore, wet and covered with mud, go through the ceremony. Alas! it is only form: their vices are not served the less. We have just sent out a Missionary to Sinde. He is gone to a town called Kurrachee, where the English residents have built a large School-house, and collected a number of Sindian children, who are taught by a converted Brahmin. Let us pray that the Gospel, which he goes to teach, may be mighty through God to the pulling down the strongholds of sin and Satan. A THOUGHT FOR CHRISTIANS. What, Christian! not unite |