divinities lit up by several lamps, my guides seemed to hasten their footsteps and to be filled with uneasiness. One of the Brahmins who was guiding me turned round and whispered that we had passed the holy of holies, but that he had only told me after we had passed for fear that I might have seen too much. The priests at length halted in a vast and superb spot, a sort of square lying in a forest of massive columns, a place into which several cathedrals seemed to open, for naves led off in every direction, and lost themselves in gloom. We are surrounded on all sides by gigantic gods hewn from a single block of stone, who brandish lances, swords and skulls, but their figures are black, shining and greasy, for they have drunk of the sweat of the countless hands that have lingered on them. There are many altars gleaming with objects of copper and silver; many pyramids of bronze that time has almost worn out, but which once held torches and played some mysterious part in the worship of the goddess. In the middle there is a swarming crowd of the nude, long-haired beggars who haunt the vicinity of every temple; the guardians drive and shove them away with many cries, for they throng importunately round a sort of barrier that has been made by attaching two cords from one pillar to another.

A portion of the strained cord is lowered so that I may pass, then raised once more so as to inclose the priests and myself within its circle. In front of me there is a table of great extent covered with a black carpet on which are heaped the treasures of the goddess.

A chair is placed for me near the piles of gold and precious stones, and a garland of marigolds is hung round my neck. Now the priests hand me the ancient jewels that have left their hiding-place for one little hour; they beg me to handle them, and find amusement in throwing them, one after the other, on to my knees. There are dozens of golden tiaras, ornamented with stones of many colours, ropes of pearls and rubies that resemble boa-constrictors.

Bracelets a thousand years old; ancient neck-pieces so heavy that they can hardly be lifted with one hand. Great urns like those the women carry on their shoulders when they go to draw water from the well, but these are hammered and chased out of fine gold. There is a chest ornament, a plate of wondrous blue, made from uncut sapphires, large as nuts.

The sound of far-off music reaches me from the back of the temple as these strange riches are poured into my hands; the growling of tom-toms and the deafening plaint of sacred shells and bagpipes. From time to time there are sounds of strife behind me, the cries of the guardians chasing away the horde of famished beggars, whose thronging threatens the frail barrier of rope. Now they show me stirrups of heavy gold, inlaid with diamonds, doubtless used by the goddess when she rides abroad. There are the false ears in gold, with pendants of fine pearls, that they hang on each side of her rose-coloured doll-like face when the procession day arrives. Here, too, the false hands and feet of

gold which they fasten to the ends of her half-formed extremities each time that she forsakes the temple's shade to make her solemn wandering.

I believed that all was over when once the treasures, with which the table was so extravagantly laden, were exhausted. But it was not so; the priests led me through dark galleries, filled with dreadful shapes, to a court in which sounds were heard like those of clear and lively trumpet notes. There, clothed in red robes, the six sacred elephants were standing in the sunlight waving their large transparent ears. On my appearance they at once knelt down, though the fanlike motion of the ears was uninterrupted. Then when I had bestowed on each the silver offering that their small shrewd eyes sought for, they rose up and departed with the ambling gait of contented bears. They went haphazard or where they listed, for they have full liberty to wander through all these passages and naves.

The halls through which I am now conducted are built and roofed with enormous blocks, and have the look of cyclopean caverns. Attendants, who accompany us, climb up the walls to draw back the mat blinds that cover airholes of irregular shape, but it is in vain. It is really so dark that we must have lamps. Naked children run to antique form that burn

fetch lamps and torches of an smokily at the extremities of long bronze stalks, or on the ends of supports bent into the form of a horn. A door covered with iron is thrown open, and our young torchbearers enter first.

We are in one of the fantastic stables of the goddess. A silver cow and some golden horses of natural size are ranged there, bathed in a perpetual night and a constant damp heat.

Now the children approach the rudely sculptured figures and the shining gems with which the harness is studded are seen to glitter in the torches' flame. Above our heads, somewhere in the awe-inspiring granite-roof we hear the shrill cries and the constant fluttering of featherless wings made by the crowd of vampires that fly above us in maddened wheelings.

There is a second door cased with iron; another stable for animals of silver and gold.

A third and last door. Here live a silver lion, a huge golden peacock, with fully expanded tail, whose eyes are made of uncut emeralds, and a golden cow with the face of a woman of supernatural size who wears jewels in her ears and jewels in the division of her nose in the manner of the Indian women. Golden sedan-chairs for the use of the goddess are stabled in the corners; state palanquins, wholly made of gold, wrought with precious carvings and inlaid with flowers of diamonds and rubies.

THE CAVES OF ELEPHANTA

LOUIS ROUSSELET

TEXT morning before daybreak we were all stirring,

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packing up the provisions and loading the boat to return to the neighbouring island of Garapoori. Here are the excavations of Elephanta, so justly renowned throughout the world for their beauty as a whole, and the immensity of the labour employed upon them. Half an hour sufficed to bring us in front of the island, which, though less extensive than Karanjah, presents the same form, parted into two peaks, rounded, and completely covered with woods up to their very summits. Here also the shallowness of the coast prevents a sufficiently near approach; and one has to wade ashore, with the water waisthigh, or, what is better, to get carried by the boatmen. At some little distance from the landing-place is a shapeless mass of rock, which represented of old a gigantic elephant, and which has procured for the island the name of Elephanta, which the Portuguese bestowed upon it. At the present day one must rely on the veracity of the guides for the rock does not bear the least trace of sculpture.

Behind a dense thicket is found the commencement of a handsome flight of steps, cut in the solid rock of the mountain, which leads to the principal excavation. It