"As Govind told me, all the female parts were taken by boys remarkable for
their beauty and the sweetness of their voices," added his lordship. "But
this is understood to be our last day in Bombay, though the limitation of
time does not come from any suggestion of mine; and we must make the best
use of what remains. You have not half seen Bombay yet."
"We should need ten years for our trip if we were to exhaust every place we
visit," replied Captain Ringgold. "All we expect is to get a fair idea of a
city; and I think we have done that here, especially as we shall see the
same things, as far as manners and customs are concerned, many times before
we finally take our leave of the country at Colombo in Ceylon."
"While we are quietly seated here, I should like to ask for some
information in regard to Juggernaut," said Uncle Moses. "I used to read the
most horrible stories in my Sabbath-school books about that idol."
"Those stories, as I have been informed by elderly Englishmen, were
published in the United Kingdom, and all of them are inventions or gross
exaggerations," replied Sir Modava, with his pleasant smile. "Puri, or
Juggernaut, is in the district of Orissa, on the western shore of the Bay
of Bengal. It is one of the holiest places in India among the Hindus. It
contains a temple of Juggernaut, in honor of Vishnu, in which is an idol of
this Hindu god, called Jagannath, which is mentioned in history as far back
as A.
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