NOTES.

NOTES.The Banian Tree.—XIII. p. 4.TheBurghut, or Banian, often measures from twenty-four to thirty feet in girth. It is distinguished from every other tree hitherto known, by the very peculiar circumstance of throwing out roots from all its branches. These, being pendant, and perfectly lax, in time reach the ground, which they penetrate, and ultimately become substantial props to the very massy horizontal boughs, which, but for such a support, must either be stopt in their growth, or give way, from their own weight. Many of thesequondamroots, changing their outward appearance from a brown rough rind to a regular bark, not unlike that of the beech, increase to a great diameter. They may be often seen from four to five feet in circumference, andin a true perpendicular line. An observer, ignorant of their nature, might think them artificial, and that they had been placed for the purpose of sustaining the boughs from which they originated. They proceed from all the branches indiscriminately, whether near or far removed from the ground. They appear like new swabs, such as are in use on board ships: however, few reach sufficiently low to take a hold of the soil, except those of the lower branches. I have seen some do so from a great height, but they were thin, and did not promise well. Many of the ramifications pendant from the higher boughs are seen to turn round the lower branches, but without any obvious effect on either; possibly, however, they may derive sustenance, even from that partial mode of communication. The height of a full-grown Banian may be from sixty to eighty feet; and many of them, I am fully confident, cover at least two acres. Their leaves are similar to, but rather larger than those of the laurel. The wood of the trunk is used only for fuel; it is light and brittle; but the pillars formed by the roots are valuable, being extremely elastic and light, working with ease, and possessing great toughness: it resembles a good kind of ash.—Oriental Field Sports, vol. ii. p. 113.——The WellWhich they, with sacrifice of rural pride,Have wedded to the Cocoa-Grove beside.—XIII. p. 5.It is a general practice, that, when a plantation is made, a well should be dug at one of its sides. The well and the tope are married; a ceremony at which all the village attends, and in which often much money is expended. The well is considered as the husband, as its waters, which are copiously furnished to the young trees during the first hot season, are supposed to cherish and impregnate them. Though vanity and superstition are evidently the basis of these institutions, yet we cannot help admiring their effects, so beautifully ornamenting a torrid country, and affording such general convenience.—Oriental Sports, p. 10.Tanks.—XIII. p. 5.Some of these tanks are of very great extent, often covering eight or ten acres; and, besides having steps of masonry, perhaps fifty or sixty feet in breadth, are faced with brick-work, plastered in the most substantial manner. The corners are generally ornamented with round or polygon pavilions of a neat appearance.—Oriental Sports, vol. ii. p. 116.There are two kinds of tanks, which we confound under one common name, though nothing can be more different. The first is theEray, which is formed by throwing a mound or bank across a valley or hollow ground, so that the rain water collects in the upper part of the valley, and is let out on the lower part by sluices, for the purposes of cultivation. The other kind is theCulam, which is formed by digging out the earth, and is destined for supplying the inhabitants with water for domestic purposes. TheCulamsare very frequently lined on all the four sides with cut stone, and are the most elegant works of the natives.—Buchanan.Where there are no springs or rivers to furnish them with water, as it is in the northern parts, where there are but two or three springs, they supply this defect by saving of rain water; which they do by casting up great banks in convenient places, to stop and contain the rains that fall, and so save it till they have occasion to let it out into the fields: They are made rounding, like a C, or half-moon. Every town has one of these ponds, which, if they can get but filled with water, they count their corn is as good as in the barn. It was no small work to the ancient inhabitants to make all these banks, of which there is a great number, being some two, some three fathoms in height, and in length some above a mile, someless, not all of a size. They are now grown over with great trees, and so seem natural hills. When they would use the water, they cut a gap in one end of the bank, and so draw the water by little and little, as they have occasion, for the watering their corn.These ponds, in dry weather, dry up quite. If they should dig these ponds deep, it would not be so convenient for them. It would indeed contain the water well, but would not so well, nor in such plenty, empty out itself into their grounds. In these ponds are alligators, which, when the water is dried up, depart into the woods, and down to the rivers, and, in the time of rains, come up again into the ponds. They are but small, nor do use to catch people, nevertheless they stand in some fear of them.The corn they sow in these parts is of that sort that is soonest ripe, fearing lest their waters should fail. As the water dries out of these ponds, they make use of them for fields, treading the mud with buffaloes, and then sowing rice thereon, and frequently casting up water with scoops on it.—Knox, p. 9.The Lotus.—XIII. p. 5.The lotus abounds in the numerous lakes and ponds of the province of Garah; and we had the pleasure of comparingseveral varieties; single and full, white, and tinged with deep or with faint tints of red. To a near view, the simple elegance of the white lotus gains no accession of beauty from the multiplication of its petals, nor from the tinge of gaudy hue; but the richest tint is most pleasing, when a lake, covered with full-blown lotas, is contemplated.—Journey from Mirzapur to Nagpur.—Asiatic Annual Register, 1806.They built them up a Bower, &c.—XIII. p. 5.The materials of which these houses are made are always easy to be procured, and the structure is so simple, that a spacious, and by no means uncomfortable dwelling, suited to the climate, may be erected in one day. Our habitation, consisting of three small rooms, and a hall open to the north, in little more than four hours was in readiness for our reception; fifty or sixty labourers completed it in that time, and on emergency could perform the work in much less. Bamboos, grass for thatching, and the ground rattan, are all the materials requisite: not a nail is used in the whole edifice: A row of strong bamboos, from eight to ten feet high, are fixed firm in the ground, which describe the outline, and are the supporters of the building: smaller bamboos are then tied horizontally, by strips of the ground rattan, to these upright posts:The walls, composed of bamboo mats, are fastened to the sides with similar ligatures: bamboo rafters are quickly raised, and a roof formed, over which thatch is spread in regular layers, and bound to the roof by filaments of rattan. A floor of bamboo grating is next laid in the inside, elevated two or three feet above the ground: this grating is supported on bamboos, and covered with mats and carpets. Thus ends the process, which is not more simple than effectual. When the workmen take pains, a house of this sort is proof against very inclement weather. We experienced, during our stay at Meeday, a severe storm of wind and rain, but no water penetrated, nor thatch escaped: and if the tempest should blow down the house, the inhabitants would run no risk of having, their brains knocked out, or their bones broken; the fall of the whole fabric would not crush a lady’s lap-dog.—Symes’sEmbassy to Ava.Jungle-grass.—XIII. p. 6.In this district the long grass called jungle is more prevalent than I ever yet noticed. It rises to the height of seven or eight feet, and is topped with a beautiful white down, resembling a swan’s feather. It is the mantle with which nature here covers all the uncultivated ground, and at once veils the indolence of the people and the nakednessof their land. It has a fine shewy appearance, as it undulates in the wind, like the waves of the sea. Nothing but the want of greater variety to its colour prevents it from being one of the finest and most beautiful objects in that rich store of productions with which nature spontaneously supplies the improvident natives.—Tennant.In such libations, pour’d in open glades,Beside clear streams and solitary shades,The Spirits of the virtuous dead delight.—XIII. p. 6.The Hindoos are enjoined by theVedsto offer a cake, which is calledPeenda, to the ghosts of their ancestors, as far back as the third generation. This ceremony is performed on the day of the new moon in every month. The offering of water is in like manner commanded to be performed daily; and this ceremony is calledTarpan, to satisfy, to appease. The souls of such men as have left children to continue their generation, are supposed to be transported, immediately upon quitting their bodies, into a certain region called thePeetree Log, where they may continue in proportion to their former virtues, provided these ceremonies be not neglected; otherwise they are precipitated intoNark, and doomed to be born again in the bodies of unclean beasts; and until, by repeatedregenerations, all their sins are done away, and they attain such a degree of perfection as will entitle them to what is calledMooktee, eternal salvation, by which is understood a release from future transmigration, and an absorption in the nature of the godhead, who is called Brahm.—Wilkins.Note to the Bhagvat Geeta.The divine names are always pleased with an oblation in empty glades, naturally clean, on the banks of rivers, and in solitary spots.—Inst. of Menu.Voomdavee.—XIII. p. 7.This wife of Veeshnoo is the Goddess of the Earth and of Patience. No direct adoration is paid her; but she is held to be a silent and attentive spectator of all that passes in the world.—Kindersley.Tassel Grass.—XIII. p. 8.TheSurput, or tassel-grass, which is much the same as the guinea-grass, grows to the height of twelve or fourteen feet. Its stem becomes so thick as to resemble in some measure a reed. It is very strong, and grows very luxuriantly: it is even used as a fence against cattle; for which purpose it is often planted on banks, excavated from ditches, to enclose fields of corn, &c. It grows wild in all the uncultivated parts of India, but especially in thelower provinces, in which it occupies immense tracts; sometimes mixing with, and rising above coppices; affording an asylum for elephants, rhinoceroses, tygers, &c. It frequently is laid by high winds, of which breeding sows fail not to take advantage, by forming their nests, and concealing their young under the prostrate grass.—Oriental Sports, vol. i. p. 32.Lo, from his trunk, upturn’d, aloft he flingsThe grateful shower, and now,Plucking the broad-leav’d boughOf yonder plane,—he moves it to and fro.—XIII. p. 9.Nature has provided the elephant with means to cool its heated surface, by enabling it to draw from its throat, by the aid of its trunk, a copious supply of saliva, which the animal spurts with force very frequently all over its skin. It also sucks up dust, and blows it over its back and sides, to keep off the flies, and may often be seen fanning itself with a large bough, which it uses with great ease and dexterity.—Oriental Sports, vol. i. p. 100.Till his strong temples, bathed with sudden dews,Their fragrance of delight and love diffuse.—XIII p. 9.The Hindoo poets frequently allude to the fragrant juice which oozes, at certain seasons, from small ductsin the temples of the male elephant, and is useful in relieving him from the redundant moisture, with which he is then oppressed; and they even describe the bees as allured by the scent, and mistaking it for that of the sweetest flowers. When Crishna visited Sanc’ha-dwip, and had destroyed the demon who infested that delightful country, he passed along the bank of a river, and was charmed with a delicious odour, which its waters diffused in their course: He was eager to view the source of so fragrant a stream, but was informed by the natives that it flowed from the temples of an elephant, immensely large, milk-white, and beautifully formed; that he governed a numerous race of elephants; and that the odoriferous fluid which exuded from his temples in the season of love had formed the river; that the Devas, or inferior gods, and the Apsarases, or nymphs, bathed and sported in its waters, impassioned and intoxicated with the liquid perfume.—Wilford.Asiatic Researches.The antic monkeys, whose wild gambols lateShook the whole wood.—XIII. p. 10.They are so numerous on the island of Bulama, says Captain Beaver in his excellent book, that I have seen, on a calm evening, when there was not an air sufficiently strong to agitate a leaf, the whole surrounding woodin as much motion, from their playful gambols among its branches, as if it had blown a strong wind.Not that in emulous skill that sweetest birdHer rival strain would try.—XIII. p. 10.I have been assured, by a credible eye-witness, that two wild antelopes used often to come from their woods to the place where a more savage beast, Sirajuddaulah, entertained himself with concerts, and that they listened to the strains with an appearance of pleasure, till the monster, in whose soul there was no music, shot one of them, to display his archery. A learned native of this country told me that he had frequently seen the most venomous and malignant snakes leave their holes, upon hearing tunes on a flute, which, as he supposed, gave them peculiar delight. An intelligent Persian, who repeated his story again and again, and permitted me to write it down from his lips, declared, he had more than once been present when a celebrated lutanist,Mirza Mohammed, surnamedBulbul, was playing to a large company, in a grove nearShiraz, where he distinctly saw the nightingales trying to vie with the musician; sometimes warbling on the trees, sometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wished to approach the instrument whence the melody proceeded, and at length dropping onthe ground, in a kind of ecstacy, from which they were soon raised, he assured me, by a change of the mode. I hardly know, says Sir William Jones, how to disbelieve the testimony of men who had no system of their own to support, and could have no interest in deceiving me.—Asiatic Researches.No idle ornaments defaceHer natural grace.—XIII. p. 10.The Hindoo Wife, in Sir William Jones’s poem, describes her own toilet-tasks:—Nor were my night thoughts, I confess,Free from solicitude for dress;How best to bind my flowing hairWith art, yet with an artless air,—My hair, like musk in scent and hue,Oh! blacker far, and sweeter too!In what nice braid, or glossy curl,To fix a diamond or a pearl,And where to smooth the love-spread toilsWith nard or jasmin’s fragrant oils;How to adjust the goldenTeic,30And most adorn my forehead sleek;WhatCondals31should emblaze my ears,LikeSeita’s32waves, orSeita’s33tears;How elegantly to disposeBright circlets for my well-form’d nose;With strings of rubies how to deck,Or emerald rows, my stately neck;While some that ebon tower embraced,Some pendent sought my slender waist;How next my purfled veil to chuseFrom silken stores of varied hues,Which would attract the roving view,Pink, violet, purple, orange, blue;The loveliest mantle to select,Or unembellished or bedeck’d;And how my twisted scarf to placeWith most inimitable grace,(Too thin its warp, too fine its woof,For eyes of males not beauty-proof;)What skirts the mantle best would suit,Ornate, with stars, or tissued fruit,The flower-embroidered or the plain,With silver or with golden vein;TheChury34bright, which gayly showsFair objects aptly to compose;How each smooth arm, and each soft wrist,By richestCosees35might be kiss’d,While some my taper ankles round,With sunny radiance tinged the ground.See how he kisses the lip of my rival, and imprints on her forehead an ornament of pure musk, black as the young antelope on the lunar orb! Now, like the husband ofReti, he fixes white blossoms on her dark locks, where they gleam like flashes of lightning among the curled clouds. On her breasts, like two firmaments, he places a string of gems like a radiant constellation; he binds on her arms, graceful as the stalks of the water-lily, and adorned with hands glowing like the petals of its flower, a bracelet of sapphires, which resemble a cluster of bees. Ah! see how he ties round her waist a rich girdle illumined with golden bells, which seem to laugh as they tinkle, at the inferior brightness of the leafy garlands which lovers hang on their bowers, to propitiate the god ofdesire. He places her soft foot, as he reclines by her side, on his ardent bosom, and stains it with the ruddy hue of Yavaca.—Songs of Jayadeva.Sandal-streak.—XIII. p. 10.The Hindoos, especially after bathing, paint their faces with ochres and sandal-wood ground very fine into a pulp.The custom is principally confined to the male sex, though the women occasionally wear a round spot, either of sandal, which is of a light dun colour, or ofsinguiff, that is, a preparation of vermilion, between the eye-brows, and a stripe of the same running up the front of the head, in the furrow made according to the general practice of dividing all the frontal hair equally to the right and left, where it is rendered smooth, and glazed by a thick mucilage, made by steeping lintseed for a while in water. When dry, the hair is all firmly matted together, and will retain its form for many days together.—Oriental Sports, vol. i. p. 271.Nor arm, nor ankle-ring.—XIII. p. 10.Glass rings are universally worn by the women of the Decan, as an ornament on the wrists; and their applying closely to the arm is considered as a mark of delicacyand beauty, for they must of course be past over the hand. In doing this a girl seldom escapes without drawing blood, and rubbing part of the skin from her hand; and as every well-dressed girl has a number of rings on each arm, and as these are frequently breaking, the poor creatures suffer much from their love of admiration.—Buchanan.The dear retreat.—XIII. p. 11.There is a beautiful passage in Statius, which may be quoted here: It is in that poet’s best manner:Qualis vicino volucris jam sedula partu,Jamque timens quâ fronde domum suspendat inanem,Providet hinc ventos, hinc anxia cogitat angues,Hinc homines; tandem dubiæ placet umbra, novisqueVix stetit in ramis, et protinus arbor amatur.Achil. ii. 212.Jaga-Naut.—XIV. p. 14.This temple is to the Hindoos what Mecca is to the Mahommedans. It is resorted to by pilgrims from every quarter of India. It is the chief seat of Brahminical power, and a strong-hold of their superstition. At theannual festival of the Butt Jattra, seven hundred thousand persons (as has been computed by the Pundits in College) assemble at this place. The number of deaths in a single year, caused by voluntary devotement, by imprisonment for non-payment of the demands of the Brahmins, or by the scarcity of provisions for such a multitude, is incredible. The precincts of the place are covered with bones.—Claudius Buchanan.Many thousands of people are employed in carrying water from Hurdwar to Juggernat, for the uses of that temple. It is there supposed to be peculiarly holy, as it issues from what is called the Cow’s Mouth. This superstitious notion is the cause of as much lost labour as would long since have converted the largest province of Asia into a garden. The numbers thus employed are immense; they travel with two flasks of the water slung over the shoulder by means of an elastic piece of bamboo. The same quantity which employs, perhaps, fifteen thousand persons, might easily be carried down the Ganges in a few boats annually. Princes and families of distinction have this water carried to them in all parts of Hindostan; it is drank at feasts, as well as upon religious occasions.—Tennant.A small river near Kinouge is held by some as even more efficacious in washing away moral defilement thanthe Ganges itself. Dr Tennant says, that a person in Ceylon drinks daily of this water, though at the distance of, perhaps, three thousand miles, and at the expense of five thousand rupees per month!No distinction of casts is made at this temple, but all, like a nation descended from one common stock, eat, drink, and make merry together.—Stavorinus.The seven-headed Idol.—XIV. p. 15.The idol ofJaggenatis in shape like a serpent, with seven heads; and on the cheeks of each head it hath the form of a wing upon each cheek, which wings open and shut and flap as it is carried in a stately chariot, and the idol in the midst of it; and one of themogulssitting behind it in the chariot, upon a convenient place, with a canopy, to keep the sun from injuring of it.When I, with horror, beheld these strange things, I called to mind the eighteenth chapter of theRevelations, and the first verse, and likewise the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of the said chapter, in which places there is a beast, and such idolatrous worship, mentioned; and those sayings in that text are herein truly accomplished in the sixteenth verse; for theBraminsare all marked in the forehead, and likewise all that come to worship theidol are marked also in their foreheads.—Bruton.Churchill’s Collection,The Chariot of the God.—XIV. p. 15.The size of the chariot is not exaggerated. Speaking of other such, Niecamp says,Currus tam horrendæ magnitudinis sunt, ut vel mille homines uni trahendo vix sufficiant.—i. 10. § 18.They have built a great chariot, that goeth on sixteen wheels of a side, and every wheel is five feet in height, and the chariot itself is about thirty feet high. In this chariot, on their great festival days, at night, they place their wicked godJaggarnat; and all theBramins, being in number nine thousand, then attend this great idol, besides ofashmenandfackeiressome thousands, or more than a good many.The chariot is most richly adorned with most rich and costly ornaments; and the aforesaid wheels are placed very complete in a round circle, so artificially, that every wheel doth its proper office without any impediment; for the chariot is aloft, and in the centre betwixt the wheels: they have also more than two thousand lights with them: And this chariot, with the idol, is also drawn with the greatest and best men of the town; and they are so eager and greedy to draw it, that whosoever,by shouldering, crowding, shoving, heaving, thrusting, or any violent way, can but come to lay a hand upon the ropes, they think themselves blessed and happy: and, when it is going along the city, there are many that will offer themselves as a sacrifice to this idol, and desperately lie down on the ground, that the chariot-wheels may run over them, whereby they are killed outright; some get broken arms, some broken legs; so that many of them are so destroyed, and by this means they think to merit heaven.—Bruton.Churchill’s Collection.They sometimes lie down in the track of this machine a few hours before its arrival, and, taking a soporiferous draught, hope to meet death asleep.—Claudius Buchanan.A harlot-band.—XIV. p. 19.There are in India common women, called Wives of the Idol. When a woman has made a vow to obtain children, if she brings into the world a beautiful daughter, she carries her toBod, so their idol is called, with whom she leaves her. This girl, when she is arrived at a proper age, takes an apartment in the public place, hangs a curtain before the door, and waits for those who are passing, as well Indians as those of other sects among whom this debauchery is permitted. She prostitutesherself for a certain price, and all that she can thus acquire she carries to the priest of the idol, that he may apply it to the service of the temple. Let us, says the Mohammedan relater, bless the almighty and glorious God, that he has chosen us, to exempt us from all the crimes into which men are led by their unbelief.—Anciennes Relations.Incited, unquestionably, says Mr. Maurice, by the hieroglyphic emblem of vice so conspicuously elevated, and so strikingly painted in the temples of Mahadeo, the priests of that deity industriously selected the most beautiful females that could be found, and, in their tenderest years, with great pomp and solemnity, consecrated them (as it is impiously called) to the service of the presiding divinity of the pagoda. They were trained up in every art to delude and to delight; and, to the fascination of external beauty, their artful betrayers added the attractions arising from mental accomplishments. Thus was an invariable rule of the Hindoos,that women have no concern with literature, dispensed with upon this infamous occasion. The moment these hapless victims reached maturity, they fell victims to the lust of the Brahmins. They were early taught to practise the most alluring blandishments, to roll the expressive eye of wanton pleasure, and to invite to criminal indulgence, bystealing upon the beholder the tender look of voluptuous languishing. They were instructed to mould their elegant and airy forms into the most enticing attitudes and the most lascivious gestures, while the rapid and graceful motion of their feet, adorned with golden bells, and glittering with jewels, kept unison with the exquisite melody of their voices. Every pagoda has a band of these young syrens, whose business, on great festivals, is to dance in public before the idol, to sing hymns in his honour, and in private to enrich the treasury of that pagoda with the wages of prostitution. These women are not, however, regarded in a dishonourable light; they are considered aswedded to the idol, and they partake of the veneration paid to him. They are forbidden even to desert the pagoda where they are educated, and are never permitted to marry; but the offspring, if any, of their criminal embraces are considered as sacred to the idol: the boys are taught to play on the sacred instruments used at the festivals, and the daughters are devoted to the abandoned occupations of their mothers.—Indian Antiquities.These impostors take a young maid, of the fairest they can meet with, to be the bride, (as they speak and bear the besotted people in hand) ofJagannat, and they leave her all night in the temple (whither theyhave carried her) with the idol, making her believe thatJagannathimself will come and embrace her, and appointing her to ask him, whether it will be a fruitful year, what kind of processions, feasts, prayers, and alms he demands to be made for it. In the mean time one of these lustful priests enters at night by a little back-door into the temple, deflowereth this young maid, and maketh her believe any thing he pleaseth; and the next day, being transported from this temple into another with the same magnificence, she was carried before upon the chariot of triumph, on the side ofJagannather bridegroom: theseBrahmansmake her say aloud, before all the people, whatsoever she had been taught of these cheats, as if she had learnt it from the very mouth ofJagannat.—Bernier.Baly.—XV. p. 26.The fifth incarnation was in a Bramin dwarf, under the name of Vamen; it was wrought to restrain the pride of the giant Baly. The latter, after having conquered the gods, expelled them from Sorgon; he was generous, true to his word, compassionate, and charitable. Vichenou, under the form of a very little Bramin, presented himself before him while he was sacrificing, and asked him for three paces of land to build a hut. Baly ridiculed theapparent imbecility of the dwarf, in telling him, that he ought not to limit his demand to a bequest so trifling; that his generosity could bestow a much larger donation of land. Vamen answered, That, being of so small a stature, what he asked was more than sufficient. The prince immediately granted his request, and, to ratify his donation, poured water into his right hand; which was no sooner done than the dwarf grew so prodigiously, that his body filled the universe! He measured the earth with one pace, and the heavens with another, and then summoned Baly to give him his word for the third. The prince then recognised Vichenou, adored him, and presented his head to him; but the god, satisfied with his submission, sent him to govern the Padalon, and permitted him to return every year to the earth, the day of the full moon, in the month of November.—Sonnerat’sVoyages, vol. i. p. 24.The sacred cord.—XV. p. 30.The Brahmans who officiate at the temples generally go with their heads uncovered, and the upper part of the body naked. TheZennar, or sacred string, is hung round the body from the left shoulder; a piece of white cotton cloth is wrapped round the loins, which descends under the knee, but lower on the left side than on theother; and in cold weather they sometimes cover their bodies with a shawl, and their heads with a red cap.—TheZennaris made of a particular kind of perennial cotton, calledVerma: it is composed of a certain number of threads of a fixed length: theZennarworn by the Khatries has fewer threads than that worn by the Brahmans, and that worn by the Bhyse fewer than that worn by the Khatries; but those of the Sodra cast are excluded from this distinction, none of them being permitted to wear it.—Craufurd.The City of Baly.—XV. p. 31.Ruins of Malâbalipûr, the City of the great Baly.A rock, or rather hill of stone, is that which first engrosses the attention on approaching the place; for as it rises abruptly out of a level plain of great extent, consists chiefly of one single stone, and is situated very near to the sea-beach, it is such a kind of object as an inquisitive traveller would naturally turn aside to examine. Its shape is also singular and romantic, and, from a distant view, has an appearance like some antique and lofty edifice. On coming near to the foot of the rock from the north, works of imagery and sculpture crowd so thick upon the eye, as might seem to favour the idea ofa petrified town, like those that have been fabled in different parts of the world, by too credulous travellers. Proceeding on by the foot of the hill, on the side facing the sea, there is a pagoda rising out of the ground, of one solid stone, about sixteen or eighteen feet high, which seems to have been cut upon the spot, out of a detached rock, that has been found of a proper size for that purpose. The top is arched, and the style of architecture according to which it is formed different from any now used in those parts. A little further on, there appears, upon a huge surface of stone, that juts out a little from the side of the hill, a numerous group of human figures, in bass-relief, considerably larger than life, representing the most remarkable persons whose actions are celebrated in the Nahâbharit, each of them in an attitude, or with weapons, or other insignia, expressive of his character, or of some one of his most famous exploits. All these figures are doubtless much less distinct than they were at first; for upon comparing these and the rest of the sculptures that are exposed to the sea-air, with others at the same place, whose situation has afforded them protection from that element, the difference is striking; the former being every where much defaced, while the others are fresh as recently finished. An excavation in another part of the east side of the great rock appearsto have been made on the same plan, and for the same purpose, that Chowltries are usually built in that country, that is to say, for the accommodation of travellers. The rock is hollowed out to the size of a spacious room, and two or three rows of pillars are left, as a seeming support to the mountainous mass of stone which forms the roof.The ascent of the hill on the north is, from its natural shape, gradual and easy at first, and is in other parts rendered more so, by very excellent steps, cut out in several places where the communication would be difficult or impracticable without them. A winding stair of this sort leads to a kind of temple cut out of the solid rock, with some figures of idols in high relief upon the walls, very well finished. From this temple there are flights of steps, that seem to have led to some edifice formerly standing upon the hill; nor does it seem absurd to suppose that this may have been a palace, to which this temple may have appertained; for, besides the small detached range of stairs that are here and there cut in the rock, and seem as if they had once led to different parts of one great building, there appear in many places small water channels cut also in the rock, as if for drains to an house; and the whole top of the hill is strewed with small round pieces of brick, which may be supposed,from their appearance, to have been worn down to their present form during the lapse of many ages. On a plain surface of the rock, which may once have served as the floor of some apartment, there is a platform of stone, about 8 or 9 feet long, by 3 or 4 wide, in a situation rather elevated, with two or three steps leading up to it, perfectly resembling a couch or bed, and a lion very well executed at the upper end of it, by way of pillow; the whole of one piece, being part of the hill itself. This the Bramins, inhabitants of the place, call the bed of Dhermarâjah, or Judishter, the eldest of the five brothers, whose exploits are the leading subject in the Mahabhârit. And at a considerable distance from this, at such a distance, indeed, as the apartments of the women might be supposed to be from that of the men, is a bath, excavated also from the rock, with steps in the inside, which the Bramins call the Bath of Dropedy, the wife of Judishter and his brothers. How much credit is due to this tradition, and whether this stone couch may not have been anciently used as a kind of throne, rather than a bed, is matter for future enquiry. A circumstance, however, which may seem to favour this idea is, that a throne, in the Shanscrit and other Hindoo languages, is calledSinghâsen, which is compounded ofSing, a lion, andásen, a seat.But though these works may be deemed stupendous, they are surpassed by others that are to be seen at the distance of about a mile, or mile and half, to the south of the hill. They consist of two pagodas, of about 30 feet long, by 20 feet wide, and about as many in height, cut out of the solid rock, and each consisting originally of one single stone. Their form is different from the style of architecture according to which idol temples are now built in that country. These sculptures approach nearer to the Gothic taste, being surmounted by arched roofs, or domes, not semicircular, but composed of two segments of circles meeting in a point at top. Near these also stand an elephant full as big as life, and a lion much larger than the natural size, both hewn also out of one stone.The great rock is about 50 or 100 yards from the sea; but close to the sea are the remains of a pagoda built of brick, and dedicated to Sîb, the greatest part of which has evidently been swallowed up by that element; for the door of the innermost apartment, in which the idol is placed, and before which there are always two or three spacious courts surrounded with walls, is now washed by the waves, and the pillar used to discover the meridian at the time of founding the pagoda is seen standing at some distance in the sea. In the neighbourhood ofthis building there are some detached rocks, washed also by the waves, on which there appear sculptures, though now much worn and defaced: And the natives of the place declared to the writer of this account, that the more aged people among them remembered to have seen the tops of several pagodas far out in the sea, which, being covered with copper, (probably gilt,) were particularly visible at sun-rise, as their shining surface used then to reflect the sun’s rays, but that now that effect was no longer produced, as the copper had since become incrusted with mould and verdigrease.—Chambers.Asiatic Researches.Thou hast been called, O Sleep! the friend of Woe,But ’tis the happy who have call’d thee so.—XV. p. 36.Daniel has a beautiful passage concerning Richard II.—sufficiently resembling this part of the poem to be inserted here:ToFlint, from thence, unto a restless bed,That miserable night he comes convey’d;Poorly provided, poorly followed,Uncourted, unrespected, unobey’d;Where, if uncertain Sleep but hoveredOver the drooping cares that heavy weigh’d,Millions of figures Fantasy presentsUnto that sorrow wakened grief augments.His new misfortune makes deluded SleepSay ’twas not so:—false dreams the truth deny:Wherewith he starts; feels waking cares do creepUpon his soul, and gives his dream the lie,Then sleeps again:—and then again as deepDeceits of darkness mock his misery.Civil War, Book II. st. 52, 53.The Aullay.—XVI. p. 40.This monster of Hindoo imagination is a horse with the trunk of an elephant, but bearing about the same proportion to the elephant in size, that the elephant itself does to a common sheep. In one of the prints to Mr. Kindersley’s “Specimens of Hindoo Literature,” an aullay is represented taking up an elephant with his trunk.——Did then the Ocean wageHis war for love and envy, not in rage,O thou fair City, that he spares thee thus?—XVI. p. 40.Malecheren, (which is probably another name for Baly), in an excursion which he made one day alone, and indisguise, came to a garden in the environs of his city Mahâbalipoor, where was a fountain so inviting, that two celestial nymphs had come down to bathe there. The Rajah became enamoured of one of them, who condescended to allow of his attachment to her; and she and her sister nymph used thenceforward to have frequent interviews with him in that garden. On one of those occasions they brought with them a male inhabitant of the heavenly regions, to whom they introduced the Rajah; and between him and Malecheren a strict friendship ensued; in consequence of which he agreed, at the Rajah’s earnest request, to carry him in disguise to see the court of the divine Inder,—a favour never before granted to any mortal. The Rajah returned from thence with new ideas of splendour and magnificence, which he immediately adopted in regulating his court and his retinue, and in beautifying his seat of government. By this means Mahâbalipoor became soon celebrated beyond all the cities of the earth; and on account of its magnificence having been brought to the gods assembled at the court of Inder, their jealousy was so much excited at it, that they sent orders to the God of the Sea to let loose his billows, and overflow a place which impiously pretended to vie in splendour with their celestial mansions. Thiscommand he obeyed, and the city was at once overflowed by that furious element, nor has it ever since been able to rear its head.—Chambers.Asiat. Res.Round those strange waters they repair.—XVI. p. 44.In the Bahia dos Artifices, which is between the river Jagoarive and S. Miguel, there are many springs of fresh water, which may be seen at low tide, and these springs are frequented by fish and by the sea-cow, which they say comes to drink there.—Noticias do Brazil. MSS. i. 8.The inhabitants of the Feroe Islands seek for cod in places where there is a fresh-water spring at the bottom.—Landt.The Sheckra.—XVII. p. 65.This weapon, which is often to be seen in one of the wheel-spoke hands of a Hindoo god, resembles a quoit: the external edge is sharp: it is held in the middle, and, being whirled along, cuts wherever it strikes.

The Banian Tree.—XIII. p. 4.

TheBurghut, or Banian, often measures from twenty-four to thirty feet in girth. It is distinguished from every other tree hitherto known, by the very peculiar circumstance of throwing out roots from all its branches. These, being pendant, and perfectly lax, in time reach the ground, which they penetrate, and ultimately become substantial props to the very massy horizontal boughs, which, but for such a support, must either be stopt in their growth, or give way, from their own weight. Many of thesequondamroots, changing their outward appearance from a brown rough rind to a regular bark, not unlike that of the beech, increase to a great diameter. They may be often seen from four to five feet in circumference, andin a true perpendicular line. An observer, ignorant of their nature, might think them artificial, and that they had been placed for the purpose of sustaining the boughs from which they originated. They proceed from all the branches indiscriminately, whether near or far removed from the ground. They appear like new swabs, such as are in use on board ships: however, few reach sufficiently low to take a hold of the soil, except those of the lower branches. I have seen some do so from a great height, but they were thin, and did not promise well. Many of the ramifications pendant from the higher boughs are seen to turn round the lower branches, but without any obvious effect on either; possibly, however, they may derive sustenance, even from that partial mode of communication. The height of a full-grown Banian may be from sixty to eighty feet; and many of them, I am fully confident, cover at least two acres. Their leaves are similar to, but rather larger than those of the laurel. The wood of the trunk is used only for fuel; it is light and brittle; but the pillars formed by the roots are valuable, being extremely elastic and light, working with ease, and possessing great toughness: it resembles a good kind of ash.—Oriental Field Sports, vol. ii. p. 113.

——The WellWhich they, with sacrifice of rural pride,Have wedded to the Cocoa-Grove beside.—XIII. p. 5.

It is a general practice, that, when a plantation is made, a well should be dug at one of its sides. The well and the tope are married; a ceremony at which all the village attends, and in which often much money is expended. The well is considered as the husband, as its waters, which are copiously furnished to the young trees during the first hot season, are supposed to cherish and impregnate them. Though vanity and superstition are evidently the basis of these institutions, yet we cannot help admiring their effects, so beautifully ornamenting a torrid country, and affording such general convenience.—Oriental Sports, p. 10.

Tanks.—XIII. p. 5.

Some of these tanks are of very great extent, often covering eight or ten acres; and, besides having steps of masonry, perhaps fifty or sixty feet in breadth, are faced with brick-work, plastered in the most substantial manner. The corners are generally ornamented with round or polygon pavilions of a neat appearance.—Oriental Sports, vol. ii. p. 116.

There are two kinds of tanks, which we confound under one common name, though nothing can be more different. The first is theEray, which is formed by throwing a mound or bank across a valley or hollow ground, so that the rain water collects in the upper part of the valley, and is let out on the lower part by sluices, for the purposes of cultivation. The other kind is theCulam, which is formed by digging out the earth, and is destined for supplying the inhabitants with water for domestic purposes. TheCulamsare very frequently lined on all the four sides with cut stone, and are the most elegant works of the natives.—Buchanan.

Where there are no springs or rivers to furnish them with water, as it is in the northern parts, where there are but two or three springs, they supply this defect by saving of rain water; which they do by casting up great banks in convenient places, to stop and contain the rains that fall, and so save it till they have occasion to let it out into the fields: They are made rounding, like a C, or half-moon. Every town has one of these ponds, which, if they can get but filled with water, they count their corn is as good as in the barn. It was no small work to the ancient inhabitants to make all these banks, of which there is a great number, being some two, some three fathoms in height, and in length some above a mile, someless, not all of a size. They are now grown over with great trees, and so seem natural hills. When they would use the water, they cut a gap in one end of the bank, and so draw the water by little and little, as they have occasion, for the watering their corn.

These ponds, in dry weather, dry up quite. If they should dig these ponds deep, it would not be so convenient for them. It would indeed contain the water well, but would not so well, nor in such plenty, empty out itself into their grounds. In these ponds are alligators, which, when the water is dried up, depart into the woods, and down to the rivers, and, in the time of rains, come up again into the ponds. They are but small, nor do use to catch people, nevertheless they stand in some fear of them.

The corn they sow in these parts is of that sort that is soonest ripe, fearing lest their waters should fail. As the water dries out of these ponds, they make use of them for fields, treading the mud with buffaloes, and then sowing rice thereon, and frequently casting up water with scoops on it.—Knox, p. 9.

The Lotus.—XIII. p. 5.

The lotus abounds in the numerous lakes and ponds of the province of Garah; and we had the pleasure of comparingseveral varieties; single and full, white, and tinged with deep or with faint tints of red. To a near view, the simple elegance of the white lotus gains no accession of beauty from the multiplication of its petals, nor from the tinge of gaudy hue; but the richest tint is most pleasing, when a lake, covered with full-blown lotas, is contemplated.—Journey from Mirzapur to Nagpur.—Asiatic Annual Register, 1806.

They built them up a Bower, &c.—XIII. p. 5.

The materials of which these houses are made are always easy to be procured, and the structure is so simple, that a spacious, and by no means uncomfortable dwelling, suited to the climate, may be erected in one day. Our habitation, consisting of three small rooms, and a hall open to the north, in little more than four hours was in readiness for our reception; fifty or sixty labourers completed it in that time, and on emergency could perform the work in much less. Bamboos, grass for thatching, and the ground rattan, are all the materials requisite: not a nail is used in the whole edifice: A row of strong bamboos, from eight to ten feet high, are fixed firm in the ground, which describe the outline, and are the supporters of the building: smaller bamboos are then tied horizontally, by strips of the ground rattan, to these upright posts:The walls, composed of bamboo mats, are fastened to the sides with similar ligatures: bamboo rafters are quickly raised, and a roof formed, over which thatch is spread in regular layers, and bound to the roof by filaments of rattan. A floor of bamboo grating is next laid in the inside, elevated two or three feet above the ground: this grating is supported on bamboos, and covered with mats and carpets. Thus ends the process, which is not more simple than effectual. When the workmen take pains, a house of this sort is proof against very inclement weather. We experienced, during our stay at Meeday, a severe storm of wind and rain, but no water penetrated, nor thatch escaped: and if the tempest should blow down the house, the inhabitants would run no risk of having, their brains knocked out, or their bones broken; the fall of the whole fabric would not crush a lady’s lap-dog.—Symes’sEmbassy to Ava.

Jungle-grass.—XIII. p. 6.

In this district the long grass called jungle is more prevalent than I ever yet noticed. It rises to the height of seven or eight feet, and is topped with a beautiful white down, resembling a swan’s feather. It is the mantle with which nature here covers all the uncultivated ground, and at once veils the indolence of the people and the nakednessof their land. It has a fine shewy appearance, as it undulates in the wind, like the waves of the sea. Nothing but the want of greater variety to its colour prevents it from being one of the finest and most beautiful objects in that rich store of productions with which nature spontaneously supplies the improvident natives.—Tennant.

In such libations, pour’d in open glades,Beside clear streams and solitary shades,The Spirits of the virtuous dead delight.—XIII. p. 6.

The Hindoos are enjoined by theVedsto offer a cake, which is calledPeenda, to the ghosts of their ancestors, as far back as the third generation. This ceremony is performed on the day of the new moon in every month. The offering of water is in like manner commanded to be performed daily; and this ceremony is calledTarpan, to satisfy, to appease. The souls of such men as have left children to continue their generation, are supposed to be transported, immediately upon quitting their bodies, into a certain region called thePeetree Log, where they may continue in proportion to their former virtues, provided these ceremonies be not neglected; otherwise they are precipitated intoNark, and doomed to be born again in the bodies of unclean beasts; and until, by repeatedregenerations, all their sins are done away, and they attain such a degree of perfection as will entitle them to what is calledMooktee, eternal salvation, by which is understood a release from future transmigration, and an absorption in the nature of the godhead, who is called Brahm.—Wilkins.Note to the Bhagvat Geeta.

The divine names are always pleased with an oblation in empty glades, naturally clean, on the banks of rivers, and in solitary spots.—Inst. of Menu.

Voomdavee.—XIII. p. 7.

This wife of Veeshnoo is the Goddess of the Earth and of Patience. No direct adoration is paid her; but she is held to be a silent and attentive spectator of all that passes in the world.—Kindersley.

Tassel Grass.—XIII. p. 8.

TheSurput, or tassel-grass, which is much the same as the guinea-grass, grows to the height of twelve or fourteen feet. Its stem becomes so thick as to resemble in some measure a reed. It is very strong, and grows very luxuriantly: it is even used as a fence against cattle; for which purpose it is often planted on banks, excavated from ditches, to enclose fields of corn, &c. It grows wild in all the uncultivated parts of India, but especially in thelower provinces, in which it occupies immense tracts; sometimes mixing with, and rising above coppices; affording an asylum for elephants, rhinoceroses, tygers, &c. It frequently is laid by high winds, of which breeding sows fail not to take advantage, by forming their nests, and concealing their young under the prostrate grass.—Oriental Sports, vol. i. p. 32.

Lo, from his trunk, upturn’d, aloft he flingsThe grateful shower, and now,Plucking the broad-leav’d boughOf yonder plane,—he moves it to and fro.—XIII. p. 9.

Nature has provided the elephant with means to cool its heated surface, by enabling it to draw from its throat, by the aid of its trunk, a copious supply of saliva, which the animal spurts with force very frequently all over its skin. It also sucks up dust, and blows it over its back and sides, to keep off the flies, and may often be seen fanning itself with a large bough, which it uses with great ease and dexterity.—Oriental Sports, vol. i. p. 100.

Till his strong temples, bathed with sudden dews,Their fragrance of delight and love diffuse.—XIII p. 9.

The Hindoo poets frequently allude to the fragrant juice which oozes, at certain seasons, from small ductsin the temples of the male elephant, and is useful in relieving him from the redundant moisture, with which he is then oppressed; and they even describe the bees as allured by the scent, and mistaking it for that of the sweetest flowers. When Crishna visited Sanc’ha-dwip, and had destroyed the demon who infested that delightful country, he passed along the bank of a river, and was charmed with a delicious odour, which its waters diffused in their course: He was eager to view the source of so fragrant a stream, but was informed by the natives that it flowed from the temples of an elephant, immensely large, milk-white, and beautifully formed; that he governed a numerous race of elephants; and that the odoriferous fluid which exuded from his temples in the season of love had formed the river; that the Devas, or inferior gods, and the Apsarases, or nymphs, bathed and sported in its waters, impassioned and intoxicated with the liquid perfume.—Wilford.Asiatic Researches.

The antic monkeys, whose wild gambols lateShook the whole wood.—XIII. p. 10.

They are so numerous on the island of Bulama, says Captain Beaver in his excellent book, that I have seen, on a calm evening, when there was not an air sufficiently strong to agitate a leaf, the whole surrounding woodin as much motion, from their playful gambols among its branches, as if it had blown a strong wind.

Not that in emulous skill that sweetest birdHer rival strain would try.—XIII. p. 10.

I have been assured, by a credible eye-witness, that two wild antelopes used often to come from their woods to the place where a more savage beast, Sirajuddaulah, entertained himself with concerts, and that they listened to the strains with an appearance of pleasure, till the monster, in whose soul there was no music, shot one of them, to display his archery. A learned native of this country told me that he had frequently seen the most venomous and malignant snakes leave their holes, upon hearing tunes on a flute, which, as he supposed, gave them peculiar delight. An intelligent Persian, who repeated his story again and again, and permitted me to write it down from his lips, declared, he had more than once been present when a celebrated lutanist,Mirza Mohammed, surnamedBulbul, was playing to a large company, in a grove nearShiraz, where he distinctly saw the nightingales trying to vie with the musician; sometimes warbling on the trees, sometimes fluttering from branch to branch, as if they wished to approach the instrument whence the melody proceeded, and at length dropping onthe ground, in a kind of ecstacy, from which they were soon raised, he assured me, by a change of the mode. I hardly know, says Sir William Jones, how to disbelieve the testimony of men who had no system of their own to support, and could have no interest in deceiving me.—Asiatic Researches.

No idle ornaments defaceHer natural grace.—XIII. p. 10.

The Hindoo Wife, in Sir William Jones’s poem, describes her own toilet-tasks:—

Nor were my night thoughts, I confess,Free from solicitude for dress;How best to bind my flowing hairWith art, yet with an artless air,—My hair, like musk in scent and hue,Oh! blacker far, and sweeter too!In what nice braid, or glossy curl,To fix a diamond or a pearl,And where to smooth the love-spread toilsWith nard or jasmin’s fragrant oils;How to adjust the goldenTeic,30And most adorn my forehead sleek;WhatCondals31should emblaze my ears,LikeSeita’s32waves, orSeita’s33tears;How elegantly to disposeBright circlets for my well-form’d nose;With strings of rubies how to deck,Or emerald rows, my stately neck;While some that ebon tower embraced,Some pendent sought my slender waist;How next my purfled veil to chuseFrom silken stores of varied hues,Which would attract the roving view,Pink, violet, purple, orange, blue;The loveliest mantle to select,Or unembellished or bedeck’d;And how my twisted scarf to placeWith most inimitable grace,(Too thin its warp, too fine its woof,For eyes of males not beauty-proof;)What skirts the mantle best would suit,Ornate, with stars, or tissued fruit,The flower-embroidered or the plain,With silver or with golden vein;TheChury34bright, which gayly showsFair objects aptly to compose;How each smooth arm, and each soft wrist,By richestCosees35might be kiss’d,While some my taper ankles round,With sunny radiance tinged the ground.

See how he kisses the lip of my rival, and imprints on her forehead an ornament of pure musk, black as the young antelope on the lunar orb! Now, like the husband ofReti, he fixes white blossoms on her dark locks, where they gleam like flashes of lightning among the curled clouds. On her breasts, like two firmaments, he places a string of gems like a radiant constellation; he binds on her arms, graceful as the stalks of the water-lily, and adorned with hands glowing like the petals of its flower, a bracelet of sapphires, which resemble a cluster of bees. Ah! see how he ties round her waist a rich girdle illumined with golden bells, which seem to laugh as they tinkle, at the inferior brightness of the leafy garlands which lovers hang on their bowers, to propitiate the god ofdesire. He places her soft foot, as he reclines by her side, on his ardent bosom, and stains it with the ruddy hue of Yavaca.—Songs of Jayadeva.

Sandal-streak.—XIII. p. 10.

The Hindoos, especially after bathing, paint their faces with ochres and sandal-wood ground very fine into a pulp.

The custom is principally confined to the male sex, though the women occasionally wear a round spot, either of sandal, which is of a light dun colour, or ofsinguiff, that is, a preparation of vermilion, between the eye-brows, and a stripe of the same running up the front of the head, in the furrow made according to the general practice of dividing all the frontal hair equally to the right and left, where it is rendered smooth, and glazed by a thick mucilage, made by steeping lintseed for a while in water. When dry, the hair is all firmly matted together, and will retain its form for many days together.—Oriental Sports, vol. i. p. 271.

Nor arm, nor ankle-ring.—XIII. p. 10.

Glass rings are universally worn by the women of the Decan, as an ornament on the wrists; and their applying closely to the arm is considered as a mark of delicacyand beauty, for they must of course be past over the hand. In doing this a girl seldom escapes without drawing blood, and rubbing part of the skin from her hand; and as every well-dressed girl has a number of rings on each arm, and as these are frequently breaking, the poor creatures suffer much from their love of admiration.—Buchanan.

The dear retreat.—XIII. p. 11.

There is a beautiful passage in Statius, which may be quoted here: It is in that poet’s best manner:

Qualis vicino volucris jam sedula partu,Jamque timens quâ fronde domum suspendat inanem,Providet hinc ventos, hinc anxia cogitat angues,Hinc homines; tandem dubiæ placet umbra, novisqueVix stetit in ramis, et protinus arbor amatur.Achil. ii. 212.

Jaga-Naut.—XIV. p. 14.

This temple is to the Hindoos what Mecca is to the Mahommedans. It is resorted to by pilgrims from every quarter of India. It is the chief seat of Brahminical power, and a strong-hold of their superstition. At theannual festival of the Butt Jattra, seven hundred thousand persons (as has been computed by the Pundits in College) assemble at this place. The number of deaths in a single year, caused by voluntary devotement, by imprisonment for non-payment of the demands of the Brahmins, or by the scarcity of provisions for such a multitude, is incredible. The precincts of the place are covered with bones.—Claudius Buchanan.

Many thousands of people are employed in carrying water from Hurdwar to Juggernat, for the uses of that temple. It is there supposed to be peculiarly holy, as it issues from what is called the Cow’s Mouth. This superstitious notion is the cause of as much lost labour as would long since have converted the largest province of Asia into a garden. The numbers thus employed are immense; they travel with two flasks of the water slung over the shoulder by means of an elastic piece of bamboo. The same quantity which employs, perhaps, fifteen thousand persons, might easily be carried down the Ganges in a few boats annually. Princes and families of distinction have this water carried to them in all parts of Hindostan; it is drank at feasts, as well as upon religious occasions.—Tennant.

A small river near Kinouge is held by some as even more efficacious in washing away moral defilement thanthe Ganges itself. Dr Tennant says, that a person in Ceylon drinks daily of this water, though at the distance of, perhaps, three thousand miles, and at the expense of five thousand rupees per month!

No distinction of casts is made at this temple, but all, like a nation descended from one common stock, eat, drink, and make merry together.—Stavorinus.

The seven-headed Idol.—XIV. p. 15.

The idol ofJaggenatis in shape like a serpent, with seven heads; and on the cheeks of each head it hath the form of a wing upon each cheek, which wings open and shut and flap as it is carried in a stately chariot, and the idol in the midst of it; and one of themogulssitting behind it in the chariot, upon a convenient place, with a canopy, to keep the sun from injuring of it.

When I, with horror, beheld these strange things, I called to mind the eighteenth chapter of theRevelations, and the first verse, and likewise the sixteenth and seventeenth verses of the said chapter, in which places there is a beast, and such idolatrous worship, mentioned; and those sayings in that text are herein truly accomplished in the sixteenth verse; for theBraminsare all marked in the forehead, and likewise all that come to worship theidol are marked also in their foreheads.—Bruton.Churchill’s Collection,

The Chariot of the God.—XIV. p. 15.

The size of the chariot is not exaggerated. Speaking of other such, Niecamp says,Currus tam horrendæ magnitudinis sunt, ut vel mille homines uni trahendo vix sufficiant.—i. 10. § 18.

They have built a great chariot, that goeth on sixteen wheels of a side, and every wheel is five feet in height, and the chariot itself is about thirty feet high. In this chariot, on their great festival days, at night, they place their wicked godJaggarnat; and all theBramins, being in number nine thousand, then attend this great idol, besides ofashmenandfackeiressome thousands, or more than a good many.

The chariot is most richly adorned with most rich and costly ornaments; and the aforesaid wheels are placed very complete in a round circle, so artificially, that every wheel doth its proper office without any impediment; for the chariot is aloft, and in the centre betwixt the wheels: they have also more than two thousand lights with them: And this chariot, with the idol, is also drawn with the greatest and best men of the town; and they are so eager and greedy to draw it, that whosoever,by shouldering, crowding, shoving, heaving, thrusting, or any violent way, can but come to lay a hand upon the ropes, they think themselves blessed and happy: and, when it is going along the city, there are many that will offer themselves as a sacrifice to this idol, and desperately lie down on the ground, that the chariot-wheels may run over them, whereby they are killed outright; some get broken arms, some broken legs; so that many of them are so destroyed, and by this means they think to merit heaven.—Bruton.Churchill’s Collection.

They sometimes lie down in the track of this machine a few hours before its arrival, and, taking a soporiferous draught, hope to meet death asleep.—Claudius Buchanan.

A harlot-band.—XIV. p. 19.

There are in India common women, called Wives of the Idol. When a woman has made a vow to obtain children, if she brings into the world a beautiful daughter, she carries her toBod, so their idol is called, with whom she leaves her. This girl, when she is arrived at a proper age, takes an apartment in the public place, hangs a curtain before the door, and waits for those who are passing, as well Indians as those of other sects among whom this debauchery is permitted. She prostitutesherself for a certain price, and all that she can thus acquire she carries to the priest of the idol, that he may apply it to the service of the temple. Let us, says the Mohammedan relater, bless the almighty and glorious God, that he has chosen us, to exempt us from all the crimes into which men are led by their unbelief.—Anciennes Relations.

Incited, unquestionably, says Mr. Maurice, by the hieroglyphic emblem of vice so conspicuously elevated, and so strikingly painted in the temples of Mahadeo, the priests of that deity industriously selected the most beautiful females that could be found, and, in their tenderest years, with great pomp and solemnity, consecrated them (as it is impiously called) to the service of the presiding divinity of the pagoda. They were trained up in every art to delude and to delight; and, to the fascination of external beauty, their artful betrayers added the attractions arising from mental accomplishments. Thus was an invariable rule of the Hindoos,that women have no concern with literature, dispensed with upon this infamous occasion. The moment these hapless victims reached maturity, they fell victims to the lust of the Brahmins. They were early taught to practise the most alluring blandishments, to roll the expressive eye of wanton pleasure, and to invite to criminal indulgence, bystealing upon the beholder the tender look of voluptuous languishing. They were instructed to mould their elegant and airy forms into the most enticing attitudes and the most lascivious gestures, while the rapid and graceful motion of their feet, adorned with golden bells, and glittering with jewels, kept unison with the exquisite melody of their voices. Every pagoda has a band of these young syrens, whose business, on great festivals, is to dance in public before the idol, to sing hymns in his honour, and in private to enrich the treasury of that pagoda with the wages of prostitution. These women are not, however, regarded in a dishonourable light; they are considered aswedded to the idol, and they partake of the veneration paid to him. They are forbidden even to desert the pagoda where they are educated, and are never permitted to marry; but the offspring, if any, of their criminal embraces are considered as sacred to the idol: the boys are taught to play on the sacred instruments used at the festivals, and the daughters are devoted to the abandoned occupations of their mothers.—Indian Antiquities.

These impostors take a young maid, of the fairest they can meet with, to be the bride, (as they speak and bear the besotted people in hand) ofJagannat, and they leave her all night in the temple (whither theyhave carried her) with the idol, making her believe thatJagannathimself will come and embrace her, and appointing her to ask him, whether it will be a fruitful year, what kind of processions, feasts, prayers, and alms he demands to be made for it. In the mean time one of these lustful priests enters at night by a little back-door into the temple, deflowereth this young maid, and maketh her believe any thing he pleaseth; and the next day, being transported from this temple into another with the same magnificence, she was carried before upon the chariot of triumph, on the side ofJagannather bridegroom: theseBrahmansmake her say aloud, before all the people, whatsoever she had been taught of these cheats, as if she had learnt it from the very mouth ofJagannat.—Bernier.

Baly.—XV. p. 26.

The fifth incarnation was in a Bramin dwarf, under the name of Vamen; it was wrought to restrain the pride of the giant Baly. The latter, after having conquered the gods, expelled them from Sorgon; he was generous, true to his word, compassionate, and charitable. Vichenou, under the form of a very little Bramin, presented himself before him while he was sacrificing, and asked him for three paces of land to build a hut. Baly ridiculed theapparent imbecility of the dwarf, in telling him, that he ought not to limit his demand to a bequest so trifling; that his generosity could bestow a much larger donation of land. Vamen answered, That, being of so small a stature, what he asked was more than sufficient. The prince immediately granted his request, and, to ratify his donation, poured water into his right hand; which was no sooner done than the dwarf grew so prodigiously, that his body filled the universe! He measured the earth with one pace, and the heavens with another, and then summoned Baly to give him his word for the third. The prince then recognised Vichenou, adored him, and presented his head to him; but the god, satisfied with his submission, sent him to govern the Padalon, and permitted him to return every year to the earth, the day of the full moon, in the month of November.—Sonnerat’sVoyages, vol. i. p. 24.

The sacred cord.—XV. p. 30.

The Brahmans who officiate at the temples generally go with their heads uncovered, and the upper part of the body naked. TheZennar, or sacred string, is hung round the body from the left shoulder; a piece of white cotton cloth is wrapped round the loins, which descends under the knee, but lower on the left side than on theother; and in cold weather they sometimes cover their bodies with a shawl, and their heads with a red cap.—TheZennaris made of a particular kind of perennial cotton, calledVerma: it is composed of a certain number of threads of a fixed length: theZennarworn by the Khatries has fewer threads than that worn by the Brahmans, and that worn by the Bhyse fewer than that worn by the Khatries; but those of the Sodra cast are excluded from this distinction, none of them being permitted to wear it.—Craufurd.

The City of Baly.—XV. p. 31.

Ruins of Malâbalipûr, the City of the great Baly.

A rock, or rather hill of stone, is that which first engrosses the attention on approaching the place; for as it rises abruptly out of a level plain of great extent, consists chiefly of one single stone, and is situated very near to the sea-beach, it is such a kind of object as an inquisitive traveller would naturally turn aside to examine. Its shape is also singular and romantic, and, from a distant view, has an appearance like some antique and lofty edifice. On coming near to the foot of the rock from the north, works of imagery and sculpture crowd so thick upon the eye, as might seem to favour the idea ofa petrified town, like those that have been fabled in different parts of the world, by too credulous travellers. Proceeding on by the foot of the hill, on the side facing the sea, there is a pagoda rising out of the ground, of one solid stone, about sixteen or eighteen feet high, which seems to have been cut upon the spot, out of a detached rock, that has been found of a proper size for that purpose. The top is arched, and the style of architecture according to which it is formed different from any now used in those parts. A little further on, there appears, upon a huge surface of stone, that juts out a little from the side of the hill, a numerous group of human figures, in bass-relief, considerably larger than life, representing the most remarkable persons whose actions are celebrated in the Nahâbharit, each of them in an attitude, or with weapons, or other insignia, expressive of his character, or of some one of his most famous exploits. All these figures are doubtless much less distinct than they were at first; for upon comparing these and the rest of the sculptures that are exposed to the sea-air, with others at the same place, whose situation has afforded them protection from that element, the difference is striking; the former being every where much defaced, while the others are fresh as recently finished. An excavation in another part of the east side of the great rock appearsto have been made on the same plan, and for the same purpose, that Chowltries are usually built in that country, that is to say, for the accommodation of travellers. The rock is hollowed out to the size of a spacious room, and two or three rows of pillars are left, as a seeming support to the mountainous mass of stone which forms the roof.

The ascent of the hill on the north is, from its natural shape, gradual and easy at first, and is in other parts rendered more so, by very excellent steps, cut out in several places where the communication would be difficult or impracticable without them. A winding stair of this sort leads to a kind of temple cut out of the solid rock, with some figures of idols in high relief upon the walls, very well finished. From this temple there are flights of steps, that seem to have led to some edifice formerly standing upon the hill; nor does it seem absurd to suppose that this may have been a palace, to which this temple may have appertained; for, besides the small detached range of stairs that are here and there cut in the rock, and seem as if they had once led to different parts of one great building, there appear in many places small water channels cut also in the rock, as if for drains to an house; and the whole top of the hill is strewed with small round pieces of brick, which may be supposed,from their appearance, to have been worn down to their present form during the lapse of many ages. On a plain surface of the rock, which may once have served as the floor of some apartment, there is a platform of stone, about 8 or 9 feet long, by 3 or 4 wide, in a situation rather elevated, with two or three steps leading up to it, perfectly resembling a couch or bed, and a lion very well executed at the upper end of it, by way of pillow; the whole of one piece, being part of the hill itself. This the Bramins, inhabitants of the place, call the bed of Dhermarâjah, or Judishter, the eldest of the five brothers, whose exploits are the leading subject in the Mahabhârit. And at a considerable distance from this, at such a distance, indeed, as the apartments of the women might be supposed to be from that of the men, is a bath, excavated also from the rock, with steps in the inside, which the Bramins call the Bath of Dropedy, the wife of Judishter and his brothers. How much credit is due to this tradition, and whether this stone couch may not have been anciently used as a kind of throne, rather than a bed, is matter for future enquiry. A circumstance, however, which may seem to favour this idea is, that a throne, in the Shanscrit and other Hindoo languages, is calledSinghâsen, which is compounded ofSing, a lion, andásen, a seat.

But though these works may be deemed stupendous, they are surpassed by others that are to be seen at the distance of about a mile, or mile and half, to the south of the hill. They consist of two pagodas, of about 30 feet long, by 20 feet wide, and about as many in height, cut out of the solid rock, and each consisting originally of one single stone. Their form is different from the style of architecture according to which idol temples are now built in that country. These sculptures approach nearer to the Gothic taste, being surmounted by arched roofs, or domes, not semicircular, but composed of two segments of circles meeting in a point at top. Near these also stand an elephant full as big as life, and a lion much larger than the natural size, both hewn also out of one stone.

The great rock is about 50 or 100 yards from the sea; but close to the sea are the remains of a pagoda built of brick, and dedicated to Sîb, the greatest part of which has evidently been swallowed up by that element; for the door of the innermost apartment, in which the idol is placed, and before which there are always two or three spacious courts surrounded with walls, is now washed by the waves, and the pillar used to discover the meridian at the time of founding the pagoda is seen standing at some distance in the sea. In the neighbourhood ofthis building there are some detached rocks, washed also by the waves, on which there appear sculptures, though now much worn and defaced: And the natives of the place declared to the writer of this account, that the more aged people among them remembered to have seen the tops of several pagodas far out in the sea, which, being covered with copper, (probably gilt,) were particularly visible at sun-rise, as their shining surface used then to reflect the sun’s rays, but that now that effect was no longer produced, as the copper had since become incrusted with mould and verdigrease.—Chambers.Asiatic Researches.

Thou hast been called, O Sleep! the friend of Woe,But ’tis the happy who have call’d thee so.—XV. p. 36.

Daniel has a beautiful passage concerning Richard II.—sufficiently resembling this part of the poem to be inserted here:

ToFlint, from thence, unto a restless bed,That miserable night he comes convey’d;Poorly provided, poorly followed,Uncourted, unrespected, unobey’d;Where, if uncertain Sleep but hoveredOver the drooping cares that heavy weigh’d,Millions of figures Fantasy presentsUnto that sorrow wakened grief augments.His new misfortune makes deluded SleepSay ’twas not so:—false dreams the truth deny:Wherewith he starts; feels waking cares do creepUpon his soul, and gives his dream the lie,Then sleeps again:—and then again as deepDeceits of darkness mock his misery.Civil War, Book II. st. 52, 53.

The Aullay.—XVI. p. 40.

This monster of Hindoo imagination is a horse with the trunk of an elephant, but bearing about the same proportion to the elephant in size, that the elephant itself does to a common sheep. In one of the prints to Mr. Kindersley’s “Specimens of Hindoo Literature,” an aullay is represented taking up an elephant with his trunk.

——Did then the Ocean wageHis war for love and envy, not in rage,O thou fair City, that he spares thee thus?—XVI. p. 40.

Malecheren, (which is probably another name for Baly), in an excursion which he made one day alone, and indisguise, came to a garden in the environs of his city Mahâbalipoor, where was a fountain so inviting, that two celestial nymphs had come down to bathe there. The Rajah became enamoured of one of them, who condescended to allow of his attachment to her; and she and her sister nymph used thenceforward to have frequent interviews with him in that garden. On one of those occasions they brought with them a male inhabitant of the heavenly regions, to whom they introduced the Rajah; and between him and Malecheren a strict friendship ensued; in consequence of which he agreed, at the Rajah’s earnest request, to carry him in disguise to see the court of the divine Inder,—a favour never before granted to any mortal. The Rajah returned from thence with new ideas of splendour and magnificence, which he immediately adopted in regulating his court and his retinue, and in beautifying his seat of government. By this means Mahâbalipoor became soon celebrated beyond all the cities of the earth; and on account of its magnificence having been brought to the gods assembled at the court of Inder, their jealousy was so much excited at it, that they sent orders to the God of the Sea to let loose his billows, and overflow a place which impiously pretended to vie in splendour with their celestial mansions. Thiscommand he obeyed, and the city was at once overflowed by that furious element, nor has it ever since been able to rear its head.—Chambers.Asiat. Res.

Round those strange waters they repair.—XVI. p. 44.

In the Bahia dos Artifices, which is between the river Jagoarive and S. Miguel, there are many springs of fresh water, which may be seen at low tide, and these springs are frequented by fish and by the sea-cow, which they say comes to drink there.—Noticias do Brazil. MSS. i. 8.

The inhabitants of the Feroe Islands seek for cod in places where there is a fresh-water spring at the bottom.—Landt.

The Sheckra.—XVII. p. 65.

This weapon, which is often to be seen in one of the wheel-spoke hands of a Hindoo god, resembles a quoit: the external edge is sharp: it is held in the middle, and, being whirled along, cuts wherever it strikes.

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