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God is intended to shew that it is beyond the limited comprehension of man, to feign to himself any just idea of him who made the world; for, they say, that no man can behold the great God and live, which is the reason that he cannot be represented in his proper shape. I enquired into the reason of their placing such a stone there, and in that awful and solemn manner; they answered, that this stone is dedicated to the honour of Mahadeva, who created the universe, and his name is placed under it, and therefore that the stone which defends the name of the great and inconceivable God from all pollution, is itself a holy memorial and monument of what cannot be described, but is not itself a God; yet, being thus placed, though a stone, no profane or polluted person ought to touch it.

The ceiling or roof of this temple is flat. Above is only a representation of beams cut in the stone, and lying along from pillar to pillar. The pillars and pilasters are of grotesque shapes; there are fifty-two, which is ten more than Dr. Fryer gives account of in his description of this place. All the east side, and the N. E. S. E. and S. W. corners are full of curious imagery of meu, women, and beasts, and sometimes a composition of both. For example the effigies of great persons compelling their subjects to obedience, others executing justice, others, as we conceived by the aspect of their faces, shewing mildness and giving friendly admonitions, and some shewing their feats

of war.

I now return to give some more particular account of the imagery within the temple. In the S. E. gate were carved out all the solemnities of the marriage of a Gentoo prince or raja, as we guessed him to be by a particular sort of line or cord he wore about him, that none others are allowed to wear; opposite to this is the figure of a king sitting on his throne, with divers attendants, and on each side a woman in a pleading posture, with an armed man holding a child by the leg in one hand, and in the other a sword, as if going to divide it, and this because of the likeness to the story we called the history of Solomon's justice. There were divers other representations of which we learned not the stories. There were some with six hands, almost all bearing weapons,

body of a man with the head of an elephant.

There is neither writing nor character to discover what people it belonged to, nor any distinct dress, for the different habits fo all the Indian people appear in one figure or other, and no man that I have yet met with can tell who were the proper inhabitants of this place, or who built this temple; but I have been informed, that the great fane, or pagoda, on Salset, is vastly superior to this in all respects, and that Captain Baker has taken a great deal of pains to describe it.

Ramajee Comajee, the Company's broker on Bombay, tells me there are several very fine temples of this nature, far exceeding these, up in the country; but wherever the Moors come they destroy them, because of the imagery, and the Portuguese for the idolatry, so that most of them are now falling to decay; yet I take this sort of building to be much more durable than any of the European buildings whatever; for it seems to me that nothing but an earthquake could entirely destroy it; it must therefore endure til! nature itself decay, when this and all things else must end. When this was begun, though I am far from knowing, I yet take the liberty to make some conjectures.

If we look back to the creation of the world, we shall find that men did first offer sacrifices in the fields; afterwards they rolled huge stones to the place where they worshipped, as a memorial that the place was hallowed. Succeeding ages erected altars somewhat more methodically, and fixed them in groves, and on the goodliest and pleasantest parts of the mountains, some in grottos and darker recesses and solitudes; as the Chinese, though they have many temples, consecrate to their gods places on the tops of hills, in caves, in grottos, and on rocks, in groves, &c.: but later times increasing in experience and wisdom, men arrived at the perfection of building noble and regular structures, and all for the purpose of paying religious duties and homage to the deity they adored.

The ancient Egyptians appear first to have excelled in the curious art of architecture, and have many great monumental pyramids yet standing, shewing their ancient industry and ingenuity.

and having habits of defence; one had the Solomon, in his temple at Jerusalem, im

proved the style of building, but he was inspired by the Fountain of Wisdom himself, and might well exceed those who had gone before him. This work I conclude to be much later than any of those times, though it seems to have copied somewhat from each of those different styles of building; for all the pillars here are nearly of such forms as I have seen described in old draughts for the pillars of Solomon's temple, only these, as they are supposed to support a greater weight, are made lower; neither are they like to any of the Tuscan, Grecian, or Roman orders: but the temple itself, being only a large grotto, has a close affinity to the Egyptian method; as for instance, the twelve chambers at the four corners. This, indeed, being the natural rock, is more capable of being capacious than the pyramids which needed many thick walls to support the top.

The earliest account of such temples I have met with in history, is that mentioned by Job Ludolphus, in his history of Ethiopia, now published in English; wherein (page 170) he gives an account of Negus Lalibala, who in the beginning of the thirteenth century, when he came to rule the kingdoms of Ethiopia, sent for artists out of Egypt, and after a wonderful manner of building unheard of till that day, he did not cement stones and bricks together with lime and loam, nor compact the roof with rafters, but hollowed out whole solid rocks, leaving pillars for ornament where requisite, the arches and the walls being throughout all of the same one stone, of which the Ethiopian poet зingeth thus:

:

To mighty Lalibala peace,

Who stately structures reared ;
And to adorn the pompous piles,
For no expenses spared.
By vast expense and toilsome pains,
The rock a church became,
The roof, the floor, and squared sides,
All one continued frame.

No stones in blended mortar laid,
The solid parts divide;
Nature has carved all without,

Within the workman's pride.
Alvarez gives an account of ten temples
all formed after this wonderful manner in
Ethiopia, which were twenty-four years
finishing; he saw them all, and gives a
draught of them in picture, in his history of

that counrty published in Italian at Rome. And Ludolphus in his history before-mentioned, page 391, says that formerly architecture as it was "in request so it was an art well known amongst them, as is evident by the ruins of the city Axuma, and the structures of magnificent temples cut out of the living stone rocks; but the imperial seat being removed, those buildings grew out of date, their kings choosing rather to abide in tents or pavilions, being because of their wars accustomed to camps."

Thus we find that the Egyptian workand also that before the days of Lalibala, men were the builders of such like temples, that is about five hundred years ago, this astonishing kind of workmanship had not been heard of in Ethiopia, wherefore I estimate this not to be older, perhaps of lesser date, for this temple was never

quite finished; for by some figures which

are but half carved, it would appear that

their work was suddenly broken off. It

seems to me probable, that when Tamerlane the Great, who was a Muhammadan, (from whom the present Mogul is the

twelfth in descent) had conquered India, the worship of imagery was entirely overturned, and the chief of the Gentus driven to the end of the kingdom, and by the time they could be well settled in those dia under Vasco in the year 1497, about parts, the Portingals that came into Intwo hundred and sixteen years ago (1712), might drive them there, as is easy to do to a people that dare not kill even a beast in their own defence. The Banians say, that all the people who did live in these islands are gone into the Raja's countries where they are defended in the exercise of their religion.

The famous Linschoten in his East India Voyages mentions this pagoda, which in his time was esteemed the high and chief temple. Page 81, he says, that the true name of this island is Pory, but called by the Portuguese Elephanta. He commends greatly the workmanship exhibited there, which he says was thought to be the performance of the Chinese, when they used to traffic in the country. When the Portuguese settled in Malacca, they prohibited the China vessels from passing further; and about the same time they took possession of these islands, I must acknowledge that a great portion of the

work has a Chinese appearance as the open porticos, tanks, cornices, beams, &c. The middle figure also in the east side is like one of the China idols called Quonieng Poussa, for a Chinese would have altered the form of his idol for one more in vogue and fashion in the country where he happened to reside. For instance, in a great pagoda at the city of Chusan, I have seen Quonieng Poussa sitting on an ass with a child in her arms after the manner we paint the blessed Virgin's flight into Egypt, and I have been told by a Chinese, ignorant of the difference between an idolatrous and Protestant Christian, that they worshipped the same gods as we do, and that she we called La Santa Virgem was Quonieng Poussa.

As for the opinion of some that these mighty works were executed by Alexander the Great, it is very improbable, for neither the Greeks nor the Persians, whose manners he most affected, built after this manner, nor did he stay in India long enough to perform such stupendous works; besides we do not find that he came into this part of India, and could have but small reason to send his army from the main to perform such labours on the small islands of this coast; and to conclude, none of the Grecian historians mention such works to have been performed by him, whilst they are particular as to the remarkable passages of his life. But supposing he built this, who built the rest? and how came their history to be lost?

The Brahmans on the spot assert that there are holy men in the Raja's country who can give account of all these things, and that they are recorded in their Sanskrit books which they will not teach the Christians. The Gentu Rajas claim all these countries, looking upon Moguls and Europeans as intruders.

I proceed now to describe their holiest place, the altar of Mahadeva, on which no offerings were to be made, but the devout expressions of clean and unpolluted hearts. In three chapels or smaller temples dedicated to Mahadeva the Great, or High God, stood three altars exactly similar, except in size, consisting of a cylindrical stone rising from a square pediment; one was in a tank of water about eight inches deep, to prevent any thing unclean coming near to it, and no other kind of carved work or other manner of ornaAsiatic Journ.-No. 13.

ment was in the inside of any of the temples. But on their holidays Ramajee says they used rich perfumes, incense, and the finest flowers to make a sweet smelling savour, and burned lights within them; the rest I did not learn, for he said that if he told me of the ceremonies I could not understand them.

In the same mountain at both the north and south entrances are other pagodas all full of imagery. Each temple has a square tank of spring water, near or within it, to purify those who entered; yet now the temple is in no lack of pollution, for the Portuguese who live there, fodder the cattle therein to defend them during the rainy season from the violence of the monsoons; they have also broken many of the images, and lately one of their Fidalgos to divert himself with the echo which is here most admirable, brought a great gun and fired several shot into it, which has broken some of the pillars, though the whole fabric seems to be as durable as ever.

We shot some doves with our small guns, for there are many which hatch among the carved work, and we killed one snake which we found in the middle of the floor.

Some of our company whilst we viewed the inside, surveyed the top of the mountain, and found that every part yielded a curious prospect, being situated in the most delightful part of all these islands. The water here is excellent, and the land fruitful, and in our opinion the place is healthy, there being no swamps but the greatest part of the island hilly land, they have the benefit of every breeze of wind. Beside these three pagodas, I am informed there is another at about half a mile distance, but we had not time to go thither.

All the pillars and pilasters that are the seeming support of the great temple, are in total height seventeen feet, on which beams are represented lying across, thus raising the ceiling or flat roof higher; and among all the ancient buildings which I have seen in England or France, I have remembrance of none such. We then fell to measuring the two lesser pagodas at the north and south sides of this great one. That on the north side is fifty-eight feet long in front, having four such, columns, and twenty-four feet wide; at VOL. III. E

its southern side stood a chapel full of fine imagery; and concerning one of those figures, a man's body with an elephant's head, they tell this fable, that a cruel and tyrannical raja (for all the deities they feign to have been so at first) had a son in whom, the people delighted, for the mildness of his temper and other virtues; but one day as this son was asleep he cut off his head, and threw it into the sea, when a great prophet coming by denounced great calamities and afflictions on the bloodthirsty monarch for taking away the life of one born to be a god and immortal. The mother of the young prince prayed him to restore her son's life, who ordered that they should cut off the head of some noble beast and place it on the young king's shoulders, when there happened to be no noble creature near but a young elephant; they applied its head, when the graft succeeded. The young prince lived and became very famous, governing the kingdom of his cruel father; when he grew up he married his wife bore a white elephant, of which they tell miraculous things. The imagery of this place Seems not so antique as the rest. Oppo

site to this is another temple of the same size, without images; a spring has filled it with water, and in the middle is a temple of Mahadeva, twenty-four feet. square, encircled by an island about nine feet wide; in front of the entrance is au armed woman with six hands, whose title we know not. On the south of the great temple also is a large tank, then a pagoda similar to the last, but not above ten feet high; the colonnade is fifty feet long, with a chapel of Mahadeva, and a dark room twenty-seven feet square, each with a naked figure of a woman with six hands, and in each` a different weapon. principal figure in the middle of the east side (the Trimurti) is set out with much carved work, and is very large, measuring from the top of the crown to the waist eighteen feet. Having thus taken a view of this great pagoda we left it, and, hav ing refreshed ourselves at the tent, embarked in our boats and steered for Bombay, where we arrived that night, after spending two days with an industry about trifles, which if I had rightly applied to the art of getting money, would have tended to a better purpose.

The

DESCRIPTION

OF THE

CULTURE OF THE WHITE POPPY AND PREPARATION OF OPIUM, AS PRACTISED IN THE PROVINCE OF BAHAR,

THE soil of Bahar consists of clay, and a large proportion of crystalline and calcareous sands; in many places white mica abounds, in others calcareous grits, which the natives burn into lime; on the surface, natron, nitrous and alimentary salts frequently vegetate, and a selenitic salt is often found. The earth is of a pale colour, readily diffusing in the mouth. It effervesces violently with nitrous acid, which quickly dissolves the calcareous particles.

The seeds are sown in October and November; the plants are allowed to grow six or ten inches from each other, and are plentifully supplied with water.

When the young plants are six or eight inches high, they are watered more sparingly; but the cultivator strews over the areas a nutritient compost of ashes, cowdung, and a large portion of nitrous earth scraped from the highways and old mud

walls.

When the plants are near flowering, they are watered profusely to increase the quantity of juice. When the capsules are half grown, no more water is given, and they begin to collect the opium.

The field being well prepared by the plough and harrow, and reduced to an exactly level superficies, is divided into quadrangular areas, seven feet long and five broad, with intervals of two feet, which are raised five or six inches, and excavated so as to form aqueducts for conveying water to each area, for which purpose a well is provided in every field. effected, consists simply of two thin plates of steel,

At sunset two longitudinal double incisions are made upon each half ripe capThe instrument with which this operation is:

sule, passing upwards, care being taken not to penetrate the internal cavity of the capsule. The incisions are repeated every evening until each capsule has received six or eight wounds; they are then allowed to ripen their seeds. The ripe capsules afford little or no juice. Were the wound made in the heat of the day, a cicatrix would be too soon formed; whilst the 'night dews, by their moisture, favour the extillation of the juice. Early in the morning old women, boys, and girls, collect the juice by scraping it off the wounds with a small iron scoop, and deposit it in an earthen pot, where it is worked by the hand in the open sunshine until it becomes of considerable spissitude. It is then formed into globular cakes of four pounds weight, and placed in little earthen basins to be exsicated the cakes are covered over with poppy or tobacco leaves, and dried until fit for sale. Opium is frequently adulterated with cow-dungt, and the extract of the poppy plant obtained by boiling, and by various other substances, which are kept secret.

The seeds are sold in the markets, and are reckoned delicious eating. They are used in emulsions, and enter into the cool

ing prescriptions of the Hindustani physicians. Opium is here a considerable branch of trade. About 600,000 pounds weight are annually exported from the Ganges, most of which goes to China and the Eastern Islands, where it is usually

about an inch and a half long, and one third of an inch broad, which are placed parallel, and bound to each other with a thread, the points being kept separate by one turn of the ligature, each piece having two sharpened points; four separate lines are marked on the plant. A thread noose is placed on the forefinger.

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sold at from two to six Spanish dollars per pound.

The good and bad uses of opium are well known and described in European books. The natives apply it to nearly the same purposes, only making a bolder use of it. They take it as a cordial internally, by which they are agreeably inebriated at a small expence. It is supposed to give vigour and courage, and is taken previously to all daring and arduous attempts ; but by too frequent use it emaciates the person, and a languid stupefaction appears in the countenance.

In the late famine of 1770, it was purchased by the unhappy sufferers at exorbi→ tant prices, to allay the cravings of hunger, and to banish the dreadful prospect of death.

Opium is beat up with a few cooling seeds in form of a cataplasm, spread upon a leaf of the ricinus, and applied to tumified glands, particularly to discuss syphilitic swellings, for which purpose it is not inferior to any European prescription.

The Chinese smoke opium with their tobacco as the greatest delicacy. After the ceremony of salutation, it is the first compliment paid to a stranger or visitor. The Malays both smoke and chew opium

to excess.

I have omitted the description of the plant, as it is to be found in every botanical writer. It is the Papaver Somuiferum of Linnæus. It grows in Britain without care to be a much statelier plant than in this country with the utmost art. Opium may probably be produced in Britain or America, upou grounds of little value, and give employment to the aged and young who are unfit for laborious work. One acre yields here sixty pounds of opium, which, valued at only nine shillings per pound, gives twenty-seven pounds per acre produce.

TRANSLATION

OF A

HISTORY OF THE PORTUGUESE LANDING IN INDIA,
Written on Leaves of the Brab Tree, or Ola, in the Malabar Language.
The original was obtained from the Vencaticota Raja who is of the Tamuri family.)

WHEN the Emperor Perumal was about to depart for Mecca, he gave the whole

country of Malabar in shares to the different Rajas; at which period the Tamp

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