Driving along the roads of this part of India one often sees stones piled up against the trunk of a tree and at the top a rude elephant’s head, decorated with flowers or stained with oil or red paint, and there will always be a little heap of gravel before it.  That elephant’s head represents the god Ganesa, and each stone represents an offering by some one who has passed by, usually the poorest, who have not been able to visit the temple, and, having nothing else to offer, not even a flower, drop a stone before the rude shrine.

There are many sacred cows in Benares.  You find them in temples and wandering around the streets.  Some of them are horribly diseased and they are all lazy, fat and filthy.  They have perfect freedom.  They are allowed to wander about and do as they please.  They feed from baskets of vegetables and salad that stand before the groceries and in the markets, and sometimes consume the entire stock of some poor huckster, who dare not drive them away or even rebuke them.  If he should attempt to do so the gods would visit him with perpetual misfortunes.  Children play around the beasts, but no one ever abuses them.  Pilgrims buy food for them and stuff them with sweetmeats, and it is an act of piety and merit to hang garlands over their horns and braid ribbons in their tails.  When they die they are buried with great ceremony, like the sacred bulls of Egypt.

Benares is the principal center of the idol trade, and a large part of the population are engaged in making images of the various gods in gold, silver, brass, copper, wood, stone, clay and other materials.  Most of the work is done in the households.  There are several small factories, but none employs more than ten or a dozen men, and the streets are lined with little shops, no bigger than an ordinary linen closet in an American house.  Each opens entirely upon the street, there are no doors or windows, and when the proprietor wants to close he puts up heavy wooden shutters that fit into grooves in the threshold and the beam that sustains the roof.  The shelves that hang from the three walls are covered with all kinds of images in all sizes and of all materials, and between sales the proprietor squats on the floor in the middle of his little establishment making more.  The largest number are made of brass and clay.  They are shaped in rude molds and afterward finished with the file and chisel.  The large idols found in the temples are often works of art, but many of them and some of the most highly revered are of the rudest workmanship.

There is a funny story that has been floating about for many years that most of the idols worshiped in heathen lands are made in Christian countries and shipped over by the car load.  This is certainly not true so far as India is concerned.  There is no evidence upon the records of the custom-house to show that any idols are imported and it would be impossible for any manufacturer in the United States or Europe to compete with the native artisans of Benares or other cities.