78 SPORTING IN BOTH HEMISPHERES. 



be five years old, if human, twenty-five.' The immolation of 

 a human female is strictly forbidden. I have seen most 

 horrible looking casts of Parvati as Mala Cali, with the 

 mouth distorted, and presenting large fangs rather than 

 teeth; the tongue protruded, nails very long and curved, 

 human skulls and snakes suspended round the neck, and 

 dancing on a dead body. A circumstance may be here men" 

 tioned, that during the expedition to Egypt against the 

 [French, the Bombay sepoys, who formed a part of the army 

 that proceeded by the Red Sea and Suez, recognised this 

 and many other mythological figures, particularly the sacred 

 bull, 'Nundi,' the great object of Hindoo veneration and 

 worship. This information they conveyed to their officers, 

 exclaiming that the people who formerly inhabited Egypt 

 must have been Hindoos. It is perhaps more probable that the 

 Hindoos borrowed some of their mythological ideas from the 

 country of Osiris." But to quote again the words of the same 

 author : " Where now is the whole mechanism of Ellora's 

 former splendour the mystic dance, the beautiful priestesses, 

 the innumerable midnight lamps, the choruses of hundreds of 

 devoted victims, the responses of music, the shouts of fanatical 

 fakeers, the solemn supplications of the graceful-looking 

 Brahmin of the olden day, clothed in long white vestments ? 

 All are fled, and succeeded in the revolutions of time by a 

 degenerate, stupid, and oppressed race, whose very presence 

 in the halls of their noble sires is a disgrace. Great has been, 

 and great is the revolution going on amongst millions of 

 Hindoos ; but if we consider the very vicious system of their 

 native governments five times, invaded, and thrice sub- 

 jugated the only surprise is, that the moral fabric has not 

 been more deteriorated." 



But I have digressed too much from the simple relation of 

 my own adventures into a field which I am well convinced 

 of my own incapability to explore, and which has been 



