1853.] Notes on the Ruins at Mahabalipuram. 667 



and that " there is no reason why the anchorage at the Seven Pago- 

 das should not be as safe as Madras roads." Nor are there wanting 

 indications of the place having formerly possessed far better anchor- 

 age than either Madras or Pondicherry could ever boast. Behind 

 and south of the sculptured ridge for some distance inland, runs a 

 salt-marsh, bearing every appearance of having once formed part of 

 the estuary, which debouches about half-way between Sadras and 

 the shore Pagoda. The soil is not at all like once firm ground, 

 overflowed by the ocean, but rather the light pulpy character of silt, 

 deposited by contending currents and streams in some nook, where 

 their forces neutralised one another : an operation well known to be 

 proceeding down to the present day in every quarter of the globe. 

 A corresponding action, minor in degree because only due to rain 

 and atmosphere, has most certainly taken place on the other side of 

 the sculptured ridge : as is shown by the five or six feet of alluvial 

 soil under which the ruins of the city are now buried : and we can 

 with equal confidence assert, that foreigners were in the habit of 

 visiting the place, as among the coins found in the vicinity, have 

 been some of Borne, of China and other distant lands. No very 

 great increase of depth in the estuary would (I believe, but I could 

 not obtain accurate soundings) be necessary to admit vessels of the 

 burthen then usual, and to afford them shelter equal to any on the 

 coast. We have, therefore, I think, good reason to conclude, that 

 in the olden days of which so few records have reached us, when the 

 Chinese, the Phoenicians and the men of Tarsis united, as in the 

 present day, the extreme east and west in bonds of amity by the 

 mutual interchange of commodities, Mavellipoor or Mahabalipuram 

 was a place of considerable commercial resort ; and perhaps one of 

 the chief ports of Southern India : very probably the Malearpha of 

 Ptolemy. I am far from considering it equally certain that this was 

 the capital city of the mythological hero Bali. We all know the 

 tendency of the Brahmins to appropriate to their own sect every 

 relic of antiquity they found in the countries over which they ex- 

 tended their influence : and beyond their own assertions, I do not 

 know that we have the least evidence to the fact. " The name still 

 surviving" will seem, to many, a strong argument : only it will not 

 prove a sound one. The name of Mahabalipuram, " the city of the 



4 n 



