Excursion to the Seven Vagodas. 457 



of this artificial ventilating machine overhead, one must 

 have had an extraordinary love for the dance to find plea- 

 sure in a polka or galop at a temperature of 86° of Fahrenheit. 

 Lord Harris had taken measures for ensuring our proceed- 

 ing direct from his residence in Guindy Park upon the 

 favourite excursion from Madras— that, namely, to the Seven 

 Pagodas. We had accordingly provided ourselves with 

 only what was indispensable in the way of luggage ; and 

 towards 1 a.m., we left the ball-room, and proceeded on 

 our way to the renowned Hindoo Temples to the south 

 of Madras. A waggon conveyed us to the Adyar bridge, 

 where a Government boat was in waiting for us, together 

 with some Hindoo servants of the Governor, who were to 

 be our guides to the Seven Pagodas. One of these peons, 

 as they are called in India, named Iritschapa, presented 

 us with a document, in which he was commissioned to 

 place himself at our disposal during the whole period we 

 were absent, and anticipate all our requirements without 

 further authorization, to the best of his ability, so as to 

 ensure our comfort and assist the objects we had in view. 



these artificial gales are particularly agreeable in apartments where, a large number 

 of persons being assembled, the atmosphere becomes intolerable — as, for instance, 

 courts of justice, churches, hotels, and hospitals. Under such circumstances, they 

 are, indeed, a most valuable contrivance. But their application is entirely overdone ; 

 and there are persons who, even wliile they are sleeping, have a Hiudoo servant 

 continually working the punkah, which, under such cu-cumstances, is usually worked 

 from an adjoinmg room by means of silken cords, so that the motive power is not 

 visible from the apartment, but only the effect felt. Strangers at first find these 

 artificial currents very apt to superinduce headache, until continued residence makes 

 hun regard the pimkah as a most necessary article of fui'iiiture. 



