[Illustration:  {Town on the Ganges}]

12.  There is a town by the side of the Ganges which the Indians say is the holiest place on earth.  It is full of temples.  Millions of Indians visit these temples every year.

13.  All along the river bank there are stone steps leading down to the water.  Standing in the stream are men and women and children who have come from all parts of India.  They wash themselves in the stream, and pour the holy water over their heads as they pray.

14.  People who are very ill are carried to this place, that they may die by the side of “Mother Ganges.”  They die happy if they can see her or hear the sound of her waters during their last moments.

15.  When they die their bodies are taken to the steps.  There they are washed in the river water, and are placed on piles of wood.  Friends set fire to the wood, and soon the bodies are burnt to ashes.  These ashes are thrown into the stream, which bears them to the distant ocean.

* * * * *

14.  Indian boys and girls.

1.  I am very fond of going about the streets with your uncle.  The Indian children always amuse me.

2.  When Indians grow up they are rather grave and sad.  The children, however, are always bright and merry.  Indian fathers and mothers are very fond of their boys.  They care very little for their girls.

3.  Boys soon become men in India.  They begin work at an early age, and they are married when they are about sixteen.  Girls are married a few years younger.

4.  Almost every boy follows the trade of his father.  A farmer’s son becomes a farmer, a weaver’s son becomes a weaver, and so on.

5.  Many of the boys go to school, but not many of the girls.  They, poor things, begin to work in the house or in the field almost as soon as they can walk.  Much of the hard rough work in India is done by poor women and girls.

6.  A rich father keeps his girls shut up in the back part of his house.  Their faces are never seen by any man except those of their own family.  If they go out of the house, they cover themselves from head to foot with a thick veil.  Sometimes they are carried from place to place in a closely shut box on poles.

7.  Are you not sorry for these poor rich girls?  I am.  They can never play merry games with boy friends, or go for long walks in the country.

8.  They know nothing of the beautiful world in which they live.  Their rooms are fine, their dresses are grand, and their jewels are lovely; but they are only poor prisoners after all.

9.  Yesterday I went with your uncle to see a village school.  There were only twenty boys in it.  The roof was off the schoolhouse, so the classes were held in the open air.

[Illustration:  {A village schoolhouse}]

10.  The boys sat on forms, just as you do.  The teacher wrote on a blackboard, and taught the children to do sums with a ball frame.  Each boy had a reading-book.  It was not printed in English, but in the tongue spoken in that part of the country.