amous for its pearl
fisheries. We proceed northward by railway to Madura, where, there being
no hotel, we take up our quarters in an unoccupied native house,
situated in a grove of cocoanut-trees. Flies, mosquitoes, and scorpions
dispute possession with us, and ugly-looking snakes creep close to the
low piazza. Flying-foxes hang motionless from the branches of the trees;
clouds of butterflies, many-colored, sunshine-loving creatures, in
infinite variety, flit about the bungalow, some with such gaudy spread
of wing as to tempt pursuit. Large bronze and yellow beetles walk
through the short grass with the coolness and gait of domestic poultry.
Occasionally a chameleon turns up its bright eye, as though to take our
measure. The redundancy of insect and reptile life is wonderful in
Southern India.

The principal attraction to the traveller in Madura, which contains some
fifty thousand inhabitants, is a remarkable and very ancient temple
supported by two thousand stone columns. It is probably one of the
largest and finest monuments of Hindoo art in existence, covering in all
its divisions, courts, shrines, colonnades, and tanks, twenty acres of
ground. It has nine lofty tower-like gates of entrance and exit, each
one of which has the effect of forming an individual pagoda. In the
central area of the temple is what is known as the "Tank of the Golden
Lily" being a large body of water covering a couple of acres of ground,
and leading into which are broad stone steps on all sides. Here
individuals of both sexes are seen constantly bathing for religious
purification. A grand tank is the adjunct of every Indian temple. This
mass of buildings contains many living sacred elephants, deified bulls,
enshrined idols, and strange ornamentation, the aggregate cost of which
must have been enormous. The elephants rival the beggars in their
importunities, being accustomed to receive an unlimited amount of
delicacies from visitors, such as fruits, sweetmeats, candies, and the
like.

Another hundred miles northward by railway brings us to the city of
Trichinopoly, where the famous natural rock five hundred feet in height
is crowned by the Temple of Ganesa. The view from this eminence is
exceptionally fine. The town far below us looks as though it had been
shaken up and dropped there by a convulsion of nature. There is no
regularity in the laying out of the place; it is a confused mass of
buildings, narrow paths, crooked roads, and low-built