Native Festival of Vishnu. 429 



village of Ischinapatam. This fort formed the nucleus, at 

 a later period, of the city of Madras, which is built on the 

 flat alluvial soil along the coast, and at present comprises 

 an area of about 30 (English) square miles. Its extent 

 along the beach from north to south is about 9 miles by 

 an extreme width of 3| miles. Madras, like all the rest, 

 consists of a White town, exclusively inhabited by Europeans, 

 and a Black town, or Pettah, in which the natives and all 

 coloured residents carry on business. 



The White town, which, however, presents none of the 

 carefully laid-out streets and compact blocks of houses 

 involuntarily suggested by the word "town," but rather 

 resembles a gigantic park, in which are situated a vast 

 number of comfortable ornamental villas, rises at its highest 

 point 20 feet above the sea ; whereas the Black town, at 

 several points — for instance, Popham's Broadway — is hardly 

 8 feet above the level of spring floods. 



While in Ceylon we had had an opportunity of becoming 

 acquainted with the influence exercised by Buddhism over 

 the political and social condition of the island ; here we, for 

 the first time, found ourselves confronted with the followers 

 of Brahmah. At the moment of our arrival, the principal 

 festival of the year was being celebrated in honour of Vishnu, 

 one of the three godheads of the Brahminical faith. It 

 lasted fourteen days, and was celebrated with much pomp. 

 Temples were improvised, and some dancing platforms erected 

 for the female servants of the temple and " bayaderes." In 



