the most ancient monuments in India, but we do not quite understand the purpose for which it was erected.  It is 110 feet high, 93 feet in diameter, and built of solid masonry with the exception of a small chamber in the center and a narrow shaft or chimney running up to the top.  The lower half is composed of immense blocks of stone clamped together with iron, and at intervals the monument was encircled by bands of sculptured relief fifteen feet wide.  The upper part was of brick, which is now in an advanced state of decay and covered with a heavy crop of grass and bushes.  A large tree grows from the top.

There used to be an enormous monastery in the neighborhood, of which the ruins remain.  The cells and chapels were arranged around a square court similar to the cloisters of modern monasteries.  A half mile distant is another tower and the ruins of other monasteries, and every inch of earth in that part of the city is associated with the life and labor of the great apostle of peace and love, whose theology of sweetness and light and gentleness was in startling contrast with the atrocious doctrines taught by the Brahmins and the hideous rites practiced at the shrines of the Hindu gods.  But these towers are not the oldest relics of Buddha.  At Gaya, where he received the “enlightenment,” the actual birthplace of Buddhism, is a temple built in the year 500 A. D., and it stands upon the site of one that was 700 or 800 years older.

Benares is distinctly the city of Siva, but several thousand other gods are worshiped there, including his several wives.  Uma is his first wife, and she is the exact counterpart of her husband; Sati is his most devoted wife; Karali is his most horrible wife; Devi, another of his wives, is the goddess of death; Kali is the goddess of misfortune, and there are half a dozen other ladies of his household whose business seems to be to terrorize and distress their worshipers.  But that is the ruling feature of the Hindu religion.  There is no sweetness or light in its theology—­it exists to make people unhappy and wretched, and to bring misery, suffering and crime into the world.

The Hindus fear their gods, but do not love them, with perhaps the exception of Vishnu, the second person in the Hindu trinity, while Brahma is the third.  These three are the supreme deities in the pantheon, but Brahma is more of an abstract proposition than an actual god.  For purposes of worship the Hindus may be divided into two classes—­the followers of Siva and the followers of Vishnu.  They can be distinguished by the “god marks” or painted signs upon their foreheads.  Those who wear red are the adherents of Siva, and the followers of Vishnu wear white.  Subordinate to these two great divinities are millions of other gods, and it would take a volume to describe their various functions and attributes.

Vishnu is a much more agreeable god than Siva, the destroyer; he has some human feeling, and his various incarnations are friendly heroes, who do kind acts and treat their worshipers tolerably well.