180 W. King —Notice of ci pre-historic Burial Place [No. 3, 
called Korumbar rings), in some respects similar to these, are frequent over 
parts of the Madras Presidency ; but here in addition to the presence of 
laro-e crosses, the tombs are all built of worked stones, and furnished with 
coffin-like cavities in place of the usual urns or earthenware chatties. 
The place itself is called, by the people around, Pdkshasgudium or 
‘ the village of demons’, whom they describe in the usual way as having been 
as tall as trees, unclothed, long-haired, and of a time beyond the ken of 
man. Situated close to the present village of Kaperlaguru, it consists of an 
assemblage of kists or huge stone boxes for the reception of the dead, (and, 
if the size of some of these be taken into consideration, of very honoured 
dead too). The numbers of inferior people who must have been employed 
to quarry, dress, and carry the stones, were not buried in this place ; it.was 
the necropolis evidently of the rulers, not necessarily the heroes, of the 
country, for many of the kists contain two or more receptacles of different 
sizes as for families. 
The ground occupied is about half a square mile in extent, but it is 
difficult to be exact as to the area or even as to the number of tombs owing 
to the thick forest growth, and there were only a few hours at my dis¬ 
posal for searching the place. There are, however, about 150 tombs scatter¬ 
ed irregularly along the crest and western slope of a low sandstone ridge, 
(lying mainly in a long W. N. W.—E. S. E. group) which is rather 
thickly crowded with kists near the northern end, where the high road 
crosses the ridge. In the more crowded portion of this ancient cemetery 
are four large cruciform monoliths, one lying flat on the ground at the 
extreme northern end of the place, and three a few yards south of the road, 
one of which is perfect and standing in a nearly upright position. 
The crosses do not seem in their position to bear any very particular 
relation to the tombs near them, and are too large, supposing they are not 
in their original sites, to have been moved far from their first position. 
The northern-most cross is not lying near any kist, but the upright 
one and another (broken and dug down to its base) are placed close to two 
pairs of large tombs, though their position is not strikingly associated 
with either of these.* The fourth monolith is lying on the ground 
some fifty yards further south near a tomb. 
The appended sketches (Plates XI and XII, figs. 1, 2) will show the 
style of these singular monoliths, which I think may be termed crosses, 
though they differ in many respects from all ornaments or sculptures of 
this class, while they are I consider of much more ancient date than the 
type from which nearly all crosses are derived. 
The two crosses in the middle ground are facing about E.—W., but 
not exactly ; that is, the proper face may be to the sun or the reverse, for 
* (See Plate XII, Fig-. 6.) 
