21 3 
up the ravines and the hollow-ways in his route. All eastern po- 
tentates affect these distinctions, nor do they ever travel without 
their heralds and pioneers: this pervades the magistracy, from 
the poorest Hindoo rajah and Mahomedan nabob of a province, 
to the emperor himself; who in the days of Mogul splendour, 
vied with Semiramis in her progress through Media and Persia: 
in which, according to Diodorus, when rocks or precipices 
impeded the royal traveller, they were ordered to be removed: 
hills and mountains were levelled, and valleys filled up, for the 
accommodation of this mighty potentate: finely illustrating the 
figurative language on the approach of the Prince of Peace, 
when “ every valley was to be exalted, and every mountain and 
hill be made low, to make straight in the desert a high way for the 
Lord !” 
There are many celebrated temples in the Conean, but still 
more above the Gauts, where in some the revenues and establish- 
ment of the priesthood are enormous: one temple in the Deccan 
formerly maintained forty thousand officiating Brahmins; who 
with the dancing-girls dedicated to the deities, and the other ex- 
pensive ceremonies of the Hindoo religion, must have consumed 
an immense income. The Hindoo deities are literally innume- 
rable: in a note to Dr. Tennant’s valuable publication, they are 
said to be thirty crore; which, at a diminished calculation, in round 
numbers exceeds three hundred millions: allowing this to be fabu- 
lous, the number of gods and goddesses in the Hindoo mythology 
must be infinite: the Brahmins instruct the other castes to wor- 
ship them, although they themselves do not believe in polytheism, 
and only worship the Supreme Being, as the great mysterious Om; 
