Page:Tom Beauling (1901).pdf/133

 are people stepped out of the Bible. Pilgrims in sackcloth and ashes, looking like lepers, with feet swollen and lame from the long pilgrimage, strolling prophets, fanatics—all the shades of brown and all the shapes of Eastern faces are there, shaven of head, ecstatic of sonl. Along the muddy Ganges are stairways of stone, stairways that have slidden into the river, stairways that are falling to pieces, stairways worn hollow, stairways that are building; above is a jagged line of many-colored temples and green trees. In the early morning you go a-boating in a fat boat with a roof; upon the roof you sit in a wicker chair, and rollop along the devout shore. The people bathe in all their clothes in the early morning, for the waters of this river are known to make a soul holy, and confidently supposed to make a body clean. Thousands of people bathing to their chins; thousands on the steps in many-colored dripping clothes; a white, hazy sun, hung low, and the stillness of a wilderness.

One man is standing on his head and