"The city of Benares, for its wealth, costly buildings, and the number of its inhabitants, is classed in the first of those now remaining in the possession of the Hindoos. To describe with a due degree of precision the various temples dedicated at Benares, to the almost innumerable deities, and to explain the origin of their foundation with the necessary arrangement, would require a knowledge far superior to mine in the mysterious subject of Hindoo Mythology. It is at this day enveloped in such deep obscurity, that even those pundits the most skilfully versed in the Sanscrit,* are not able to render it moderately comprehensible to the generality of people. ....At the distance of eight miles from the city of Benares, as it is approached on the river, from the eastward, the eye is attracted by the view of two lofty minarets, which were erected by Aurungzebe, on the foundation of an ancient Hindoo temple, dedicated to the Mhah Deve. The construction on this sacred ruin of so towering a Mahometan pile, which, from its elevated height, seems to look down with triumph and exultation on the fallen state of a city so profoundly revered by the Hindoos, would appear to have been prompted to the mind of Auruugzebe, hy a bigoted and intemperate desire of insulting their religion. If such was his wish, it hath been completely fulfilled. For the Hindoos consider this monument, as the disgraceful record of a foreign yoke, proclaiming to every stranger, that their favourite city has been debased, and the worship of ther gods defiled. from the top of the minarets is seen the entire prospect of Benares, which occupies a space of .about two miles and an half along the northern bank of the Ganges, and generally a mile inland from the river....The irregular and compressed manner which has been invariably adopted in forming the streets of Benares,has destroyed the effects which symmetry and arrangement would have otherwise bestowed on a city, entitled, from its valuable buildings, to a preference of any capital which I have seen in India."