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port the massy fabric; the architraves .and borders round the 

 compartments of figures are very elegant, and the groups of 

 warriors, performing martial exercises, on horseback, on foot, and 

 on fighting elephants, approach nearer to the athletic gladiators 

 and classical bas-reliefs of ancient Greece, than any performances 

 in the excavations of the Elephanta, or the best finished temples I 

 have seen in Hindostan. The warlike weapons of the soldiers, 

 with their armour, as also the jewels, chains, and ornaments in the 

 caparisoned horses and elephants, are admirably finished; there is 

 likewise a profusion of lions, camels, birds, and serpents, too nume- 

 rous to discriminate. In one compartment, a man and woman, 

 standing under a plantain-tree, with an infant at their feet, are 

 very conspicuous; it forms a separate group, resembling the gene- 

 ral representation of Adam and Eve in paradise. The serpent, 

 which forms so distinguished a feature in the Hindoo mythology, 

 and is usually introduced with our first parents, made no part of 

 this sculpture, although a prominent subject in other places. 



In the sculpture of the eastern portal the cobra di-capello was 

 very distinguishable; and not only this species, but a variety of 

 other large snakes abounded in the city and its environs, espe- 

 cially in the banian-groves without this beautiful gate. The ruinous 

 buildings near the durbar were so infested by serpents of almost 

 every description, that I frequently employed the charmers to with- 

 draw them. The cobra di-capello, like those mentioned at Ba- 

 roche, were considered as the guardian genii of my garden. The 

 brahmins and Hindoo astrologers of Dhuboy on hearing my escape 

 from the hooded-snake, and the cobra minelle found in such num- 

 bers in my bed-chamber at Bombay, began their astrological cal- 



