Ali, then retreating before our army. The sanguinary command was executed by Sumroo, a German. A monument, but without any inscription, has been erected on the place.
On the 26th of July he arrived at Benares, a city which, for its wealth, costly buildings, and the number of its inhabitants, was considered the first then remaining in the possession of the Hindoos. Hither the professors of the confused and intricate, but frequently sublime, theology of Brahma had retired from all parts of Hindostan as the most holy spot on earth. Being conversant with the language necessary for the conducting of such researches, Forster devoted the time spent at Benares in endeavouring to penetrate, as far as a stranger was permitted, into the mysteries of Brahminism. This subject, after all the researches which have been made by Europeans, is still enveloped in much obscurity. It is not known whether, commencing in the grossest polytheism, the sages of Hindostan gradually elevated their minds to the knowledge of one supreme and invisible God, or, commencing with this simple and sublime truth, degenerated into polytheism and idolatry. The latter is the prevalent theory. It is thought more rational to imagine, that while in every other department of knowledge mankind proceeded from the less to the greater, and by constant exercise improved their mind, the only instrument which man possesses for measuring the universe, their progress in theology, if I may so express myself, has in general been retrograde, at least in Hindostan. Forster was of this opinion. "There is reason," he says, "to believe, that in the more early periods of time, before the priests of the Hindoos had found it expedient, for the firmer establishment of their sway over the minds of the people, to raise a huge superstructure of emblematical worship, the temples erected to the Supreme Being were plain and void of personification. The remains of one of
