A RUN THROUGH KATHIAWAR. 209 



it is calculated to excite, would involve a small 

 volume on the history and mythology of India, 

 Suffice it to say, that both the position and character 

 of the ruin make it a most striking object, though 

 it has been much changed and disfigured by the 

 Muhammadans, and is now quite a ruin. It must 

 emphatically have been a sculptured temple ; and 

 the richness of Hindu sculpture is seen to better 

 effect in the built than in the cave or rock temples. 

 Even as a ruin it is beautiful, and it must have been 

 a wonderful place when its fifty-six pillars were inlaid 

 with precious stones ; when pilgrims flocked to it 

 from all parts of India ; when the rise and fall of 

 the tide was adduced, and readily received, as a 

 proof of Ocean's adoration of it ; and when thou- 

 sands of priests, musicians, and dancing-girls were 

 engaged in its service. There are also other and very 

 interesting antiquities and sacred places in its neigh- 

 bourhood. Among these may be specially mentioned 

 the Silrya Kanda in the town of Pathan, which pre- 

 sents a colonnade of over two hundred elaborately- 

 carved pillars ; and farther off the Devasarga, where 

 Krishna, the Indian Apollo, yielded up his life. 



It occurred to a certain merchant of Bombay, after 

 he had resided for twenty years there, and was about 

 to return to England, that he had seen nothing of the 

 interior of India. Fired with a laudable ambition to 

 repair this defect in his education, he went as far as 

 he could get by rail in his time, and then betook 



VOL. v. o 



