1849.] Remains of Greek Sculpture in Potowar. 135 



is established, admits not of a doubt. And I cannot but regard the fact 

 as of intense interest to the antiquary, tending to affect many of the 

 prevailing theories of the origin of the most interesting race in India. 



By pressing my enquiries on all hands, I learned that the architrave, 

 and lintels of a door to this temple had been removed to Kuttass, and 

 introduced into the principal temple there. I revisited that temple at 

 the latest hour of my stay, and found the stones alluded to sculptured 

 into the most graceful and exquisite wreath of flowers, terminating below 

 in a cornucopice. The flower which I know not by name, though it is 

 familiar to my eye, I have seen, unless memory deceive me, beautifully 

 delineated in the inlaid work of the Taz. The workmanship of the Taz 

 has surprised many. Whence the models and who the artists ? Some 

 of the models I have found growing wild upon the mountains of Af- 

 ghanistan ; here is another. Doubtless, when the Taz was erected, 

 vestiges of the exquisite taste of Greece were less obliterated. Two 

 centuries of Muhammedan bigotry, yea the single reign of Aurungzebe, 

 being as deadly in its effect upon the graces of social life, as forty cen- 

 turies of the wear and tear of the great destroyer. 



Whilst busily searching the Tchoah site for fragments of sculpture, 

 the faquer observed, " If you look for images you should go to Ram- 

 kata, where they lie thick as shingle ; many of them still in their niches." 

 Gathering from his description that a Grecian temple was still existant 

 at that place, I deferred (though much prest for time) my march, and 

 started at once for Ramkata,* distant about 15 miles westward of 

 Tchoah. 



At the southern brink of the table-land of Potowar a small area 

 half a mile in length by a quarter of a mile in breadth is scarped south- 

 ward by precipices 200 feet in height, and northward by a precipitous 

 acclivity of some fifty feet, resembling upon a very diminished scale the 

 site of Maundoo in Malwa. The rocks are white limestone full of sea- 

 shells and masses of flint and agate . Graceful towers have been con- 

 structed on the northern face connected by walls of loose stones : and 

 thus we have a fortress of some strength were it preserved in repair. In 

 the interior, near the southern declivity, at the highest point, stands a 

 ruin which at first sight appeared to me that of a Gothic Church — on 

 approaching, my ideas were strangely confused : for here are fluted 

 * Called also Mullote and Shahgurh. 



