Much of the Ganges’ present width is mere overflow, shallow enough for the men to wade and tow the boat.  It is tugged a considerable distance up-stream, to take advantage of the swift current in crossing the main channel.  The oars are plied vigorously to a weird refrain of “deelah, sahlah-deelah, sahlah!” the stroke oarsman shouting “deelah” and the others replying “sahlah” in chorus.  Two hours are consumed in crossing the river, but once across the road is perfection itself, right from the river’s brink.

Through the valley of the sacred river, the splendid kunkah road leads onward to Benares, the great centre of Hindoo idolatry, a city that is more to the Hindoo than is Mecca to the Mohammedans or Jerusalem to the early Christians.  Shrines and idols multiply by the roadside, and tanks innumerable afford bathing and purifying facilities for the far-travelled pilgrims who swarm the road in thousands.  As the heathen devotee approaches nearer and nearer to Benares he feels more and more devotionally inclined, and these tanks of the semi-sacred water of the Ganges Valley happily afford him opportunity to soften up the crust of his accumulated transgressions, preparatory to washing them away entirely by a plunge off the Kamnagar ghaut at Benares.  Many of the people are trudging their way homeward again, happy in the possession of bottles of sacred water obtained from the river at the holy city.  Precious liquid this, that they are carrying in earthenware bottles hundreds of weary miles to gladden the hearts of stay-at-home friends and relations.

At every tank scores of people are bathing, washing their clothes, or scouring out the brass drinking vessel almost everyone carries for pulling water up from the roadside wells.  They are far less particular about the quality of the water itself than about the cleanliness of the vessel.  Many wells for purely drinking purposes abound, and Brahmans serve out cool water from little pahnee-chowkees through window-like openings.  Wealthy Hindoos, desirous of performing some meritorious act to perpetuate their memory when dead, frequently build a pahnee-chowkee by the roadside and endow it with sufficient land or money to employ a Brahman to serve out drinking-water to travellers.

Thirty miles from Allahabad, I pause at a wayside well to obtain a drink.  It is high noon, and the well is on unshaded ground.  For a brief moment my broad-brimmed helmet is removed so that a native can pour water into my hands while I hold them to my mouth.  Momentary as is the experience, it is followed by an ominous throbbing and ringing in the ears—­the voice of the sun’s insinuating power.  But a very short distance is covered when I am compelled to seek the shelter of a little road-overseer’s chowkee, the symptoms of fever making their appearance with alarming severity.

The quinine that I provided myself with at Constantinople is brought into requisition for the first time; it is found to be ruined from not being kept in an air-tight vessel.  A burning fever keeps me wide awake till 2 a.m., and in the absence of a punkah, prickly heat prevents my slumbering afterward.  This wakeful night by the roadside enlightens me to the interesting fact that the road is teeming with people all night as well as all day, many preferring to sleep in the shade during the day and travel at night.