196 
KENNERI CAVES. 
taste. The whole is in ruins, the roof having fallen in. The author, 
whom I have before mentioned, attributes this to the devastations 
of the Mahrattas, who, he says, carried away the wood work to 
Tannah ; but this appears improbable. Timber is not scarce ; and 
if they had carried away the more solid work, they would hardly 
have left behind them the parts that were richly ornamented. Un- 
der the church a small pagoda has been formed out of the rock ; it 
is square, and flat roofed, with a few deities, and other figures, in 
basso-relievo. These the good priests had covered up with a smooth 
coat of plaister, and had converted the whole into a chapel. At 
present the original proprietors have been uncovered, and have 
again become objects of adoration to the ignorant native. 
Early on the morning of the 53d we departed for the Caves of 
Kenneri, which are the most important in the island, and are formed 
out of a high knowl, in the middle of the range of hills which di- 
vides the island nearly into two equal parts. I soon found that, 
limited as I was for time, it would be impossible to investigate the 
whole of the caves, I therefore gave my chief attention to the great 
cavern, which resembles the one at Carli, in being oblong, and hav- 
ing a coved roof, though it is inferior to it in size, in elegance of de- 
sign, and in beauty of execution. It has the same singular building 
at the upper end, and the vestibule is equally adorned with figures. 
Its peculiar ornaments are two gigantic figures of Boodh, nearly 
twenty feet high, each filling one side of the vestibule. They are 
exactly alike, and are in perfect preservation, in consequence of 
their having been christened and painted red by the Portuguese, 
who left them as an appendage to a Christian church, for such this 
temple of Boodh became under their transforming hands. 1 have 
