“It is not long,” said my friend, “since a British officer of engineers, on some expedition or other, was encamped for the night at no great distance from here.  His tent had been pitched near one of those Persian water-wheels such as you have seen, which, although of great antiquity, are perhaps as ingeniously adapted to the purpose of lifting water as any machine ever invented.  The creaking of the wheel annoyed him very much, and after a restless night, owing to that cause, he rose and went out of his tent and inquired of the proprietor of the wheel (a native) why in the name of Heaven he never greased it.  ‘Because,’ said the conservative Hindu, ’I have become so accustomed to the noise that I can only sleep soundly while it is going on:  when it stops, then I wake, and knowing from the cessation of the sound that my bullock-driver is neglecting his duty, I go out and beat him.’  Thus, even the conservation of the useless comes in time to create habits which are useful.”

“It is true,” I replied, “and it recalls to me a somewhat unusual illustration.  A summer or two ago a legal friend of mine, who is the possessor of a large family of children, came into the court-room one morning with very red eyes, and to my inquiry concerning the cause of the same he replied:  ’To tell you the truth, I can’t go to sleep unless a child is crying about the house somewhere; but my wife left town yesterday for the summer with all the children, and I haven’t had a wink the whole night.’”

A drive of some five hours brought us to Mattra after dark, and as we crossed the bridge of boats over the sacred Jumna (the Yamuna of the Sanscrit poems) he seemed indeed thrice holy, with his bosom full of stars.  Mattra, which lies immediately on the western bank of the river, stands next to Benares among the holy cities of the Hindus:  here both the soil and the river-water are consecrated, for this was the birthplace of Krishna, or, more properly speaking, the scene of that avatar of Vishnu which is known as Krishna.  When we rose early in the morning and repaired to the river-bank, hundreds of the faithful were ascending and descending the numerous ghats leading down the high bank to the water, while a still more animated crowd of both sexes were standing up to their middle in the stream, throwing the water in this direction and that, and mingling their personal ablutions with the rites of worship in such a way as might at once clean both souls and bodies.  Evidences of the holy character of the town met us everywhere as we strolled back to our lodgings.  Sacred monkeys, painted red over their hind quarters in consecration to the monkey-god Hanuman, capered and grinned about us, and sacred bulls obstructed our way along the narrow and dirty streets, while everywhere we saw pictures representing Krishna—­sometimes much like an Apollo in the guise of a youthful shepherd playing the flute to a group of young girls, who danced under a tree; sometimes as a Hercules strangling a serpent or performing other feats of physical strength.