450 



Versovah and other places on this island, frequently sutler much 

 from their deleterious effects. 



During the whole of my residence in India, J never had a more 

 alarming fever, than I was formerly seized with in the principal 

 cave at Salsette, when I had been travelling two days in a palan- 

 quin, through the lower parts of the island, after the rainy season : 

 before the vapours were sufficiently exhaled from the stagnant 

 marshes and putrid vegetables on their borders. I therefore 

 doubly enjoyed the interest and beauty of this wonderful scenery 

 on the present occasion, when blessed with health, and surrounded 

 by a social party of both sexes, sharing in every pleasure. At the 

 same time I would observe, that after sufficiently reposing in the 

 great temple, a pensive stroll among these solitary and silent 

 mountains, is preferable for a stranger : he should leave the com- 

 panions of his journey for an hour, to enjoy alone the peculiar 

 sensations, on beholding a city not built b} r man, but excavated 

 from the rocks; immense temples not erected by human hands, 

 but hewn inch by inch within a mountain of granite, in the most 

 exact proportion. Adorned with elegant and lofty pillars, seem- 

 ingly to support a noble concave roof. The temple indeed contains 

 only an amazing lingam, but in its magnificent portico stand the 

 gigantic images of Boodha, or some great deity, with compart- 

 ments in basso relievo, of various subjects in the Hindoo mytho- 

 logy. He ascends from thence, by numerous steps cut in the rock 

 leading from one range of habitations to another, excavated in the 

 same manner, with verandas, cisterns, and other conveniences for 

 a large population: he treads the whole in silence, and meets no 

 other inhabitant than birds, bats, and bees; unless, perchance. 



