filled with dwija (twice born) Brahmans.

India is the land of legends and of mysterious nooks and corners.
There is not a ruin, not a monument, not a thicket, that has no
story attached to it. Yet, however they may be entangled in the
cobweb of popular imagination, which becomes thicker with every
generation, it is difficult to point out a single one that is not
founded on fact. With patience and, still more, with the help
of the learned Brahmans you can always get at the truth, when once
you have secured their trust and friendship.

The same road leads to the temple of the Parsee fire-worshippers.
At its altar burns an unquenchable fire, which daily consumes
hundredweights of sandal wood and aromatic herbs. Lit three
hundred years ago, the sacred fire has never been extinguished,
notwithstanding many disorders, sectarian discords, and even wars.
The Parsees are very proud of this temple of Zaratushta, as they
call Zoroaster. Compared with it the Hindu pagodas look like
brightly painted Easter eggs. Generally they are consecrated to
Hanuman, the monkey-god and the faithful ally of Rama, or to the
elephant headed Ganesha, the god of the occult wisdom, or to one
of the Devis. You meet with these temples in every street. Before
each there is a row of pipals (Ficus religiosa) centuries old,
which no temple can dispense with, because these trees are the
abode of the elementals and the sinful souls.

All this is entangled, mixed, and scattered, appearing to one's
eyes like a picture in a dream. Thirty centuries have left their
traces here. The innate laziness and the strong conservative
tendencies of the Hindus, even before the European invasion,