16 ("URIOSITTES rX SCULPTURE. 



after ascending a fliglit of two hundred steps cut out 

 of the rock, we reached the platform. Here a Rajah 

 had encamped under a large crimson tent, having 

 made the pilgrimage of sevei-al hundred miles in the 

 hope of thereby saving his soul from reappearing after 

 •death in the body of an unclean animal. From this 

 spot I had a splendid view upon the bay and the coast 

 line, but the broiling sun soon drove me to seek shelter 

 within the caves, cut out of the living rock. They 

 .are elaborately sculptured at the cost of an incredible 

 amount of manual labour, and consist of several 

 chambers, the largest of which is about 130 feet 

 square, and eighteen feet high, supported by twenty- 

 five (now partly broken) columns. There is a curious 

 representation of the Hindu Trinity in the centre, a 

 large bust of the three-formed God as Creator, Pre- 

 server and Destroyer. On each side of this hall 

 there is another compartment, the walls of which are 

 covered with a variety of many - armed figures or 

 deities and their attributes, frequently in the form of 

 monsters, whilst at the upper end of one of the 

 inner walls there is, by way of contrast, a i-ather 

 skilful and elegantly designed piece of sculpture in the 

 shape of two cherub heads a la Raphael, and on the 

 ceiling that of two figures apparently floating in the 

 .air, not unlike, in idea, Thorwaldsen's " Night and 



