98 



A NATURALIST'S WANDERINGS 



brave with me the wrath of the guardian spirits of the grove, 

 and assist me in the sacrilegious work of hewing which my 

 operations would entail. 



In the immediate neighbourhood, was discovered a bronze 

 bell of undoubted Hindoo manufacture, its handle ornamented 

 with the sacred bull, but without the clapper which had 

 dropped from its ring; and within the boundaries of the 

 grove stands a rude figure of the Buddha, with elevated finger, 

 as if in the act of instructing. 



The ruins consist of terraces built up round the hill, which 

 probably once encircled it entirely, but part of which has 

 evidently extended where now the coffee plantation exists, 

 and has been obliterated perhaps in the cultivation of forest 

 patches by the natives in former periods. Only the portion 

 surrounding for some distance that used by the worshippers has 



EGG-SHAPED STONE FEOM THE EAKAXG S GKOVE. 



been left unmolested. There the terraces are completely laid 

 out in quadrilateral enclosures, their boundaries marked out by 

 blocks of stone laid or fixed in the ground, which with singular 

 exactitude lie within a degree of the true magnetic cardinal 

 points. Here and there on the terraces are more prominent 

 monuments — erect pillars surmounting oval piles of stones ; 

 flat slabs on the ground supporting egg-shaped blocks, which 

 a,re distributed iu many spots in such numbers and perfection 

 01 shape that to have made them or searched the brooks for 

 them must have entailed a vast expenditure of time and 

 trouble. Here and there also I found flat slabs raised on end 

 and remains of circular paved areas, set round with upright 

 blocks of stone. Specially noteworthy was a pillar, erect 

 within a square marked out with stones on the ground, round 



