( 422 ) 



TO THE 



RIGHT HON. SIR JOHN SHORE, BART. 



GOVERNOR-GENERAL, 



AND PRESIDENT OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



DEAR SIR, 



T HAVE had from Mr. Gold inch am (one of the 

 ■*■ Honourable Company's astronomers at Fort Sainf 

 George, a person of much ingenuity, and who ap- 

 plies himself to the study of antiquities) some draw- 

 ings taken from the eave on the island of Elephant a. 

 They are the most accurate of any I have seen, and 

 accompanied with a correct description. This gen- 

 tleman argues ably in favour of its having been an 

 Hindu temple; yet I cannot assent to his opinion. 

 The immense excavations cut out of the solid rock 

 at the Elephant a, and other caves of the like nature 

 on the island of Salsette, appear to me operations of 

 too great labour to have been executed by the hands 

 of so feeble and effeminate a race as the aborigines of 

 India have generally been held to be, and still conti- 

 nue: and the few figures that yet remain entire, re- 

 present persons totally distinct in exterior from the 

 present Hindus, being of a gigantic size, having large 

 prominent faces, and bearing some resemblance to the 

 Abyssinians, who inhabit the country on the west side 

 of the Red Sea, opposite to Arabia. There is no tra- 

 dition of these caves having been frequented by the 

 Hindus as places of worship ; and at this period no 

 foojah is performed at any of them; and they are 



scarcely 



