soldier stands sentry over a visitors' book. For the great capitals of
India have moved from Delhi and Agra, the old strategic points in the
centre of the great northern plain, to Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, and
Rangoon, new cities on the sea, to suit the later over-sea rulers of
India. There is the interest of the grand organisation of the British
Government, holding in its strong paternal grasp that vast continent of
three hundred million souls. Sometimes the sight of the letters V.R.I,
or E.R.I. (Edwardus Rex Imperator) makes one think of the imperial
S.P.Q.R.[1] once not unfamiliar in Britain. But this interest rather I
would emphasise--the penetration into the remotest jungle of the great
organisation of the British Government is a wonderful thing. By the
coinage, the post-office, the railways, the administration of justice,
the encouragement of education, the relief of famine,--by such ways the
great organisation has penetrated everywhere,--in spite of faults, the
greatest blessing that has come to India in her long history. Travelling
by rail from Calcutta to Benares, the metropolis of Hinduism, situated
upon the north bank of the sacred Ganges, we see the British rule, in
symbol, in the great railway bridge spanning the river. By it old India,
self-centred, exclusive, introspective, was brought into the modern
world; compelled, one might say, by these great spans to admit the
modern world and its conveniences, in spite of protest that the railway
bridge would pollute the sacred stream. Crossing the bridge, our eyes
are fixed on the outstanding feature of Benares--city of hundreds of
Hindu temples. What is it? Not a Hindu temple, but a splendid Mahomedan
mosque whose minarets overlook the Hindu city, calling the city of
Hindus to the worship of Allah. For the site of that mosque, the Moghul
emperor Aurangzeb ruthlessly cleared away a magnificent temple most
sacred to the Hindus. Concerning another famous Hindu temple in the same
city, listen to the Autobiography of another earlier Moghul emperor,
Jahangir. "It was the belief of these people of hell [the Hindus] that a