Benares is a stop on the railway journey through India where inherited accounts of sacred history meet the travelers’ brief view of the city from a moving train. Its importance in the narrative lies both in that contrast and in a parting: Sir Francis Cromarty leaves the party here, while the railway carries Phileas Fogg, Aouda, and Passepartout onward beside the Ganges.

Setting and Traditional Reputation

The city is associated with the ancient Casi of Brahmin legend. Those legends place the city on ground once suspended between heaven and earth, a story the narration sets against the unpoetic solidity of contemporary Benares. Orientalists call it the Athens of India, giving the city a learned classical distinction even as the travelers encounter it only in passing.

That juxtaposition makes Benares more than a name on the itinerary: it is a place where sacred and scholarly reputations coexist with the material landscape of railway travel. The contrast is sharpened by the narration’s movement from mythic elevation to the solid earth beneath the train.

Arrival and the View from the Train

The train stops at Benares at half-past twelve. Passepartout catches sight of the city as the train enters it: brick houses and clay huts, which give the place an appearance of desolation. His view is fleeting and framed by the carriage windows; the account offers neither a visit to the city’s celebrated religious sites nor an extended encounter with its inhabitants.

The brevity matters. Benares arrives in the narrative at once as a place carrying a substantial cultural reputation and as a passing view that the travelers have little time to examine. The train’s timetable governs what can be seen, placing the city’s legendary past beside a limited, mobile impression of its present.

Departure and the Parting

Benares is Sir Francis Cromarty’s destination. The troops he is rejoining are encamped several miles north of the city, and he takes leave of Phileas Fogg, wishing him success and hoping he will return on a less unusual and more profitable journey. Fogg answers the farewell with a light press of the hand.

Aouda’s parting is warmer: she remembers what she owes Sir Francis. Passepartout, too, receives a hearty handshake from the general. The small differences in these farewells distinguish the relationships formed on the road, even as the stop brings the travelers’ shared stretch of the journey to an end.

The Railway and the Ganges Valley

After leaving Benares, the railway follows the valley of the Ganges for a time. The city thus marks a change in the party as well as a point in the route: Sir Francis separates from them, while the others continue through a landscape shaped by the river and by the railway’s forward movement.

The scene places a modern transport network alongside a sacred geography. The train does not pause to explore Benares; it carries the travelers past the city and onward along the river valley. That tension between the cultural depth attributed to a place and the narrowness of a traveler’s passing view is central to the way Benares is presented.