tugals suffer none but Christians here; it has no rivers, only inlets 
from the sea; but good springs from the rocks; the ground ex- 
cellently fertile, either of itself, or by the care of the inhabitants; 
that it yields good cabbages, coleworts, and better radishes than 
ever I yet saw: besides garden fruit, here are incomparable water- 
melons, and onions as sweet and as well tasted as an apple; and 
for the natural growth of the soil, it is known not only to supply 
the adjoining islands, but Goa also: it is more than twenty miles 
in length, and seventy in circumference.” 
Dr. Fryer’s account of the excavated mountains at Salsette, 
and the temples at the Elephanta, though very entertaining, throw 
no light on their origin: I did not pursue his route of Alexander, 
as it is foreign to the subject; and it appears almost ridiculous to 
mention theopinion of those travellers who conjecture the excavations 
to have been made in the reign of Solomon, by artists who sailed 
in his fleet from Ezion-geber to Ophir, for the commodities of 
India; and as a proof of this assertion, point out a sculptured 
group at the Elephanta, where they pretend to trace the story of 
the celebrated judgment of that monarch in the case of the two 
harlots: this is too groundless for discussion. Many attribute 
them to Alexander, as remarked by Dr. Fryer, but after crossing 
the Indus, and entering the Punjab, that country watered by five 
rivers, the Macedonian hero made little progress into the southern 
provinces of Hindostan; for, on the banks of the river Chelum, or 
Betah, the ancient Hydaspes, he was opposed by Porus, the In- 
dian sovereign, as appears from Arrian’s history, taken from the 
iournals of Aristobulus, Nearchus, and the other generals who ac- 
companied Alexander: the hardships his veteran Greeks had un- 
