1847.] Notes on the Caves of Burabur. 405 



forms a kind of amphitheatre or recess ; the ground is strewed with 

 bricks and potsherds, denoting the existence in former times of a large 

 town. The first object the visiter is led to is a strong spring of clear 

 water murmuring through the fissures of the rock at the base of the 

 northern ridge and disappearing under ground beyond a basin or small 

 reservoir of modern construction. This water is called the " Patal 

 Gunga," the Ganges flowing beneath the earth. I need not state the 

 absurd stories connected with this natural curiosity ; a fair is held here 

 yearly in the month of August. 



We are next led up the steep and slippery face of a bare mass of 

 sienite for more than an hundred feet, when the remains of a rudely 

 constructed wall (connecting the masses of rock) appear ; passing these 

 for a short distance, and sliding down a block, worn smooth by the 

 process, we find ourselves beside the first cave (See plate VIII. fig. 4) 

 called " Viswa Mitra." The first apartment is square or rather pyra- 

 midal like Egyptian works. 



The dimensions being 7' 9" at top and 8' 9" at the base ; the height 

 6' 8-g-" outside, 6' 7i" at the inner end, in the centre of which is a door- 

 way likewise narrow at top and wide at the base, (a feature common to 

 all the caves,) this leads into an unfinished chamber of an irregular 

 oval form : on the east side of the first room, is the inscription marked 

 as fig. 13 pi. IX. There are four sockets about 6 inches in length 

 by 2 inches wide, two on each side on the floor of the outer chamber, 

 apparently to receive some kind of frame work. There is a precisely 

 similar arrangement at the Aswastema terrace over the great inscription 

 of Dhowlee in Cuttack. 



Leaving this cave we pass under the mass of rock in which it is 

 seated, in an easterly direction between huge detached masses, here and 

 there connected with rude walls or piles of stone ; some fallen pillars 

 and hewn blocks are the only remains of what was once a gate-way, 

 beneath which are the traces of a flight of rude steps, and a causeway 

 leading down into the amphitheatre first described ; a few yards 

 further west bring you into the elevated valley or basin : on the south 

 side are the two ridges of rock out of which the three great caves arc 

 excavated. The length of this table-land may be three furlongs or 

 more, and greatest breadth one and half. The whole space except where 

 there are the remains of tanks, is strewed with bricks and potsherds, and 



