414 Voyage of the Novara. 



vehemence. These cables, as also several of the poles by 

 which the temple was supported, were thickly hung with 

 carved figures of Buddha enveloped in linen cloth, which, 

 originally the votive offerings of pilgrims, and bleached by 

 long exposure, fluttered in the breeze. On the front of the 

 temple is erected a penthouse roof, shading a bench beneath, 

 on which several of our porters, who regarded our impious 

 presence, and still more impious admeasurements of the holy 

 footprint, with a horror which they flattered themselves was 

 unobserved, deposited their offerings of flowers, and humbly 

 bent the knee. On the west side, under two small distinct 

 roofs, were two bells, and quite apart, on the rock itself, and 

 somewhat in the background, a smaller temple. Between the 

 block of rock and the inner half of the enclosure, a small house 

 has been erected, 12 feet long by 6 feet broad, which is used 

 as a shelter at night by the priests who are on duty during the 

 pilgrimage season,* in which we too took up our quarters. 

 Suddenly, from the depths below there arose, through the 

 unbroken silence of the night, a confused murmur, in which 

 the sounds of human voices were plainly recognizable. The 

 singularity of such a phenomenon produced a certain degree of 

 excitement among our superstitious spectre-dreading followers, 

 inasmuch as it had never happened that strangers undertook 

 the ascent of the peak at night, seeing it gives trouble enough 



* The dry season, occiirring iu the south-west side of the island from Jauuaiy to 

 April, is likewise the chief season of pilgrimage, at the end of which the entire 

 amount of the offerings, annually averaging from ^£250 to ^£300 sterling, is handed 

 over to the High-Priest of Buddha. 



