picked our way through damp and dripping courts littered with freshly carved stones, crawled under scaffoldings and inclined planks, until we were well confused with the multiplicity of shrines, the garlanded and greased images of Shiva, Parvati, Ganesha, and the Bull, and always the figure of the dancing god with one knee acutely bent and the other foot flung with abandon. The courts were empty, the shrines deserted, no worshipers, no workmen, no priests, no crowd of idlers, as in the busy Madura and Srirangam temples. No signs of preparation for our visit were evident, and we sent the peon and Daniel and lay brethren in hot haste to give the alarm, lest the function be delayed past sunset. A few languid villagers stole in and stared, the longitudinal sect-mark of Vishnu on the forehead and the loosely drawn dhotee drapery around their shoulders giving them a strong resemblance to our red Indians of the prairies in war-paint and reservation blankets. Then more waiting succeeded, more messengers were despatched with more vehement advices, and Daniel, with the air of great cares pressing on him, paced the arcades meditating, speaking now and then with magnificent gestures, like a real raja. "My birthly is Christian," he had informed us in the first sanctuary of heathendom, that we might feel free to comment and question at will.
A band of Brahmans in fresh war-paint finally arrived, and their fierce hawk-like gaze, their eager, excited, hurried air, might have given one qualms of alarm at our isolation in this labyrinthine fortress of a temple, remote from any European settlement,
