3-011-986 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ganges pilgrims passing a ghaut, [India], 1864. 'The road between Allahabad and Benares is literally crowded with pilgrims to the sacred river...They are coming from, or going to, every part of India - Thibet, and even Birmah. Here and there the crowds are so dense that it is with difficulty that you make your way through them. Our Illustration shows a party of holy-water venders passing a ghaut, or the steep, ragged incline leading to a ford of one of the numerous nullahs, or mountain streams which intersect their road to the outlying districts, where they will dispose of the so-called sacred water to those Hindoos who are too poor to make the pilgrimage themselves, or are prevented by other causes from undertaking it. The water is used in offerings and other religious ceremonies, and is supposed to possess miraculous curative properties. It is taken from the confluence of the Jumna and the Ganges, the most sacred spot, where the small bottles are filled and sealed by the officiating Brahmin, and then deposited in neat partitions in the baskets. These pilgrims are regarded with superstitious veneration. They have made a journey of perhaps a thousand miles on foot by easy stages'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.