e of banyan-trees on what is called the Mowbray
Avenue. The wide streets are admirably kept, being carefully
macadamized, over which carriage wheels glide with noiseless motion.
This description applies, however, only to the European portion of the
town, with its fine public buildings, consisting of many literary and
scientific institutions, as well as educational and charitable ones. The
native portion of Madras is contracted, mean, and dirty in the extreme,
the common people showing a degree of indigence and indifference to
decency which is absolutely appalling to witness in so large a
community, but it was quite in accordance with what we had observed
farther south. The elaborate English fort is one of the strongest and
best constructed fortifications in the East, forming a most prominent
feature of the city, and crowning a moderate rise of ground contiguous
to the shore with its attractive surroundings, white walls, graceful
though warlike buildings, flower plats, and green, sloping banks. Fort
George was the original name of Madras. The noble light-house is within
the grounds,--a lofty structure considerably over a hundred feet in
height, and visible nearly twenty miles at sea. Near this spot, along
the coast to the northward, are the rock-cut temples of Mahabalihuram,
rendered familiar by Southey's charming poetry.

At night we were lulled to sleep by the hoarse, sullen roar of the
restless waters. By day it was curious to watch the long surf-washed
beach, directly in front of our hotel, and to see the fishermen struggle
with the waves in their frail, but well adapted native boats, called
catamarans. These are constructed of three pieces of timber, ten or
twelve feet long, tied securely together with cocoanut fibre; the middle
one being longer than the others, and curved upwards at each end. Two
men generally go together, and force them through the water with short
paddles used alternately on either side. We saw them repeatedly washed
off by the surf; but as they are naked and good swimmers, they either
reach the boat again, or, if driven away from it by the sea and
undertow, regain the shore. Sometimes only one is washed off, but not
unfrequently both are compelled to swim back to the shore where the
frail boat itself is soon after thrown high upon the beach by the power
of the waves. We were told that it was a very rare circumstance for one
of these Madras boatmen to lose his life by drowning, as they become
suc