208 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



was all the conversation that passed between them 

 under the banian-tree : 



" Awfu' teach, John ! " 



"Ay, it's tench." 



Vairawal, curiously enough, reminds one of the 

 Latin grammar, for ver or vir in Sanscrit means a 

 hero, and the translation of the name is "Line of 

 Heroes," rather a misnomer at the present day. It 

 was formerly a great haitnt of pirates and slave- 

 dealers, but is now more noted for its export of 

 cotton. But its great attraction is the world-fa- 

 mous temple of Somnath, which stands about two 

 miles off on the peninsula of Pathan Somnath. 

 This place is known to my readers by the story of 

 the Gates of Somnath, which were carried off to 

 Kaubul by Mahmiid of Ghazni after his sacking 

 the temple (with a force of 300,000 men, of whom, 

 say the historians, 50,000 were slain) in 1025 A.D., 

 and which were brought back into India with great 

 pomp by the late Lord Ellenborough when he was 

 Viceroy, and are now in the fort at Agra. Tod has 

 called it "perhaps the most renowned of all the 

 shrines of India," and one of its names denotes it as 

 the chief dwelling-place of the great god Mahadeva 

 or Shiva. It contained one of the twelve linyas of 

 this god which are believed by the Hindus to have 

 fallen from heaven rather a curious place for them 

 to come from. To go into the, associations of this 

 temple so as to render intelligible the feelings which 



